How we actually decide a game's score

People ask about our ratings more than anything else, so here's the honest version. A score on Amberlane Play isn't a formula. It's the number we land on after someone's played the thing properly and we've all argued about it.

We weigh a few things heavily: how the controls feel, whether the game respects your time, and how long before the novelty wears off. A game can look stunning and still score low if it fights your thumbs or buries fun behind busywork.

We also try to score games against their own ambitions. A tiny casual game and a sprawling RPG aren't competing for the same number. We ask whether a game does what it set out to do, and does it well.

So when you see a 4.2 next to a 4.7, that gap is smaller than it looks. Both are worth your time. One just left us thinking about it afterward.