How we land on a score, and why we sometimes change it

People ask what a 4.4 means versus a 4.6, and the honest answer is that it's a judgment we argue over, not a formula. But there is a rough method behind it.

We weigh how the game feels to control, how it treats your time, and how it behaves on the phone — battery, heat, stutter. A game can be creative and still lose points if it cooks your device or nags you constantly.

We play on at least two phones, one older and one newer, because a game that runs beautifully on flagship hardware can be miserable on a mid-range device. The score reflects the harder case as much as the easy one.

Scores aren't frozen. When an update fixes performance or adds a control option we asked for, we go back and adjust, and we note the change in the review. It'd be dishonest to leave an old number standing after the game improved.

And no, nobody pays for a number. The scores come out of a group chat where we cheerfully disagree, which is the whole reason we started this.