About

Offline Arcade started as a notes app full of game recommendations I kept sending to friends who were tired of titles that froze the moment the subway lost signal. At some point the list got too long, so we turned it into a proper site. The idea is simple: cover games you can open on a plane, on a train, in a basement flat with terrible reception, and still have a good time.,The team is small. Three of us play regularly, one writes most of the long pieces, and everyone argues about ratings in a shared chat. We don't accept finished reviews from studios and we don't rewrite marketing copy. If a game needs an account just to see the main menu, it usually doesn't make it onto the site.,When we pick something to cover, we actually finish it — or at least sink enough hours in to know where it gets good and where it gets annoying. We flip the phone to airplane mode on purpose and see what still runs. That one test knocks out a surprising number of apps that claim to be offline.,Recently we tested Legends of Slots and spent a whole weekend taking it apart, which is roughly how most of our deep dives begin. Everything you read here comes from that kind of hands-on time.

Marta Kowalczyk — Marta has been reviewing mobile games for the better part of a decade and still keeps a drawer full of cheap Android phones for testing. She writes most of the long-form pieces and makes the final call on ratings.