Some browser games launched a decade or two ago and never stopped. We play the ones that lasted, work out why they lasted, and write down whether they are still worth your evening — with a link straight to the developer.
All six are free to start and most run in a browser tab. Ratings are out of five and describe the current state of the game, not the one we remember.
4.6Still the deepest browser-born MMO there is. Skills progress independently, so you can spend a month fishing and call it a career. The free account covers a genuinely large slice of the world before anything is asked of you.
4.4A co-operative shooter in pixel art where death is permanent and everyone on screen is fighting the same wave. The tension of a high-level character with nothing between it and a mistake is the whole appeal.
4.1A turn-based fantasy RPG that has been quietly updated for over twenty years. Combat is simple and readable, the writing is knowingly silly, and it asks nothing of your hardware at all.
4.3Dozens of mice trying to reach a piece of cheese while one of them builds the bridge. Chaotic, funny, and genuinely co-operative in a way very few games manage. Rounds last under a minute.
4.0A social world of pixel-art rooms where the activity is entirely made by the people in it. There is no goal, which is either the point or the problem depending on what you came for.
3.9The quickest thing on this shelf: grow a worm, cut ahead of a longer one, start again. No account, no download, no commitment. Perfect for five minutes and thin after fifty.
Not nostalgia. We play the current build and judge it against what a new player would find on their first evening.
We never pay during testing. If the free version of a game is a demo in disguise, that is the first thing the review says.
An empty server ruins a social game. We check populations at ordinary hours rather than at peak weekend times.
How long from opening the page to a moment worth having. Long tutorials are noted; long sign-up flows are noted twice.
The shelf grows one entry at a time and most suggestions come from readers. Tell us what you played then and are still playing now.
Send a suggestion