The desk
About Short Run Arcade
A small review desk in London, writing about games you can open in a tab and close again without losing anything.
Marlow Finch
Editor
Twenty years of playing things in tabs when the desktop was busy. Runs the retest calendar and writes the verdicts.
Priya Rai
Tester, handhelds
Tests every cabinet one-handed on a phone before it goes on the floor, usually somewhere between Morden and Camden.
Why session length
Most games writing assumes you have an evening. Most playing happens in the gaps: a wait on a platform, a bus across town, ten minutes before a meeting that has not started. A game that is wonderful over three hours can be a poor choice for those ten minutes, and the usual review score will not tell you that.
So we sort by the honest length of one session, and we mark the things that matter when your time is borrowed. It is a narrower question than “is this game good?”, and a more useful one.
What is on the floor
Twelve games, all free, all playable in a browser with no download. Nothing here sells a random-chance box. Where a game has advertising, a shop or public chat, the review says so in the snags rather than in the small print.
How this is paid for
Nobody pays for a place on the floor and no developer has any say over a review. Our method page sets out the rules we work to, including what happens if that ever changes.
Write to us
Corrections, a game we should look at, or a disagreement with a score — all welcome at desk@shortrunarcade.com.