Six games - an unhurried look
Six browser games and an unhurried look
Six free games that need nothing more than the tab you are in. Each was given weeks rather than an afternoon, and each entry covers the same ground: what the loop really is, how long a sitting takes, what the shop sells and the sort of player it suits.
A slow look at six things at Sanctuarynova
The standard article on this subject is a list of forty names with a line each. It can be put together in an afternoon from publisher copy and it answers none of the questions that decide whether the next month is any good.
Sanctuarynova looks at six. Each was given weeks rather than an evening, which is roughly where a free game either shows you a wall or proves there is not one, and six is few enough that we are still inside them when something changes.
Nothing is ranked. A railway network, a portal of small games and a 1939 war map do not share a scale, and inventing one would bury the only useful information - what each of them wants from the person playing it.
Somewhere to begin at Sanctuarynova
Forge of Empires. It explains itself in twenty minutes, nothing is lost while you are away, and most people are still playing it a month later.
Six games you can narrow down by genre
The buttons shrink the grid. Every card opens the studio's own site and nothing in between.
The bar a game clears at Sanctuarynova
Six places, four conditions that cannot be waived and two that are judgement calls.
The tab does all the work at Sanctuarynova
Ten minutes of actual play in the browser. A download page ends the question there.
Not paying still reaches the game here
Money may shorten the journey. It cannot be the only way to the part worth describing.
Looked after and lived in at Sanctuarynova
Patches within recent months and players online in the evening - both verified before writing.
Six reasons, none repeated here
A 1939 map, a small-games portal, a city across the ages, a castle map, a railway network and a crowded map.
A short sitting has to pay at Sanctuarynova
If forty minutes gives you nothing, the recommendation belongs on a different page.
It lasted past the Sanctuarynova write-up
The signal that cannot be faked: whether we kept opening it when there was nothing left to write.
What the shop is for in each Sanctuarynova entry
All six open free and keep going free, and all six sell something. That is how studios pay their people, and a page that stopped at the word free would be leaving out the half readers get caught by.
The useful question is what the money attaches to. In five of these it compresses time - a building finished now, a wait removed, a second queue - and an unpaid account reaches the same place on a longer schedule.
Call of War is the one to watch here. It hands paying players conveniences that compound across a round lasting weeks: faster production, better information, fewer delays. It does not hide the interesting part, but over a long round those edges add up.
The habit worth taking from this page: fix your figure before a shop is open in front of you, not once the offer is on screen.
Everything Sanctuarynova covers, at once
The session column deserves the first look. Rhythm decides whether something is still open in a month more reliably than subject ever does.
| Game | Genre | A session runs | Plays best on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Call of War | WW2 Grand Strategy | 15 to 30 minutes | Desktop and laptop. |
| Esprit Games | Browser Games Portal | 5 to 15 minutes | Desktop, laptop and tablet. |
| Forge of Empires | City Through the Ages | 10 to 20 minutes | Desktop, laptop and tablet. |
| Goodgame Empire | Castle Strategy | 15 to 25 minutes | Desktop, laptop and tablet. |
| Rail Nation | Railway Tycoon | 15 to 25 minutes | Desktop, laptop and tablet. |
| Travian | Empire Strategy | 20 to 30 minutes | Desktop, laptop and tablet. |
What each Sanctuarynova entry asks of your week
Rhythm, not subject, is why a good game gets dropped. These six run from one with no claim on your week at all to two that notice a quiet weekend.
Esprit Games is the one that asks nothing. It loads in four seconds, you play for ten minutes, and nothing is running when you close it.
Forge of Empires, Rail Nation and Goodgame Empire want short regular visits and forgive a missed day. Fifteen minutes is a complete session in all three.
Call of War and Travian are the two that notice. Both are live maps against real people, both repay a daily check-in, and both are better begun when the coming fortnight looks calm.
The usual questions at Sanctuarynova
Will anything be downloaded?
No. All six are web pages. Two offer an optional desktop client, which changes performance and leaves the content alone.
How is any of this free?
Optional purchases pay for it: premium accounts, cosmetics, skipping a wait. All six stay complete for somebody who never spends, which is why they are here.
What about on a phone?
They load. Most assume a mouse and a wide screen, so a laptop is the honest answer for anything beyond a glance.
Do I need to make an account?
For most, yes, because the studio stores your progress. It is free and entirely separate from Sanctuarynova.
Who writes Sanctuarynova?
Two people in the UK with a long history in browser strategy, playing on free accounts and writing from their own notes.