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Autumn run · Proofed on Water Street

Browser games, printed in two passes and judged on both

Every game on this sheet gets played twice. The pink pass is the first evening, when we only ask whether it makes sense at a glance. The blue pass comes a week later, on a different screen, to see whether it still earns the time. Where the two inks overlap, we print a score.

Riso-style poster: a pink circle and a blue panel overlapping into purple, with a fishing line and a triangle of pegs
Inks on the drum
Fluorescent pink, medium blue
Gap between passes
Seven days, minimum
Last pull
November 4, 2026
Where it is read
Canada, mostly on transit
Overprint of the run Coin Picker title art: a blue pickaxe over an orange mine wall dotted with gems

Studio pick, autumn 2026

Coin Picker

Margaux opened it on a Tuesday to check a screenshot and closed it forty minutes later, which is the fastest any game has ever passed the pink round here. What surprised us came on the blue pass: Theo played it on a cracked Android phone in portrait, Anjali on a work laptop with the Space bar, and both kept going past the point where they had enough notes.

The loop is plain. You hold to dig, your axes rattle down the shaft, the bounty bar fills, the round is tallied and the tools improve. The skill sits in small choices: steering hits toward the golden chute for extra axes, and watching where the tally lands so the x2 markers do some work for you.

  • Pink pass8.6
  • Blue pass9.1
  • Overprint8.9
Start digging on CrazyGames — Coin Picker on CrazyGames, which opens in a separate tab outside this survey

The method in three layers

Two inks, one overlap

A risograph prints one colour per drum, so every poster we make goes through the machine twice. We review games the same way and only trust what shows up in both layers.

The pink pass

One evening, one device, no guides. Can a stranger tell what to press within a minute? Does the first screen respect the person looking at it? We write that impression down before anyone talks about it.

The blue pass

At least a week later, a different player on a different screen. This round is about stamina: whether progress is still there, whether the loop changes, and whether the game is happy to be paused halfway through.

The overprint

The number we publish weights the blue pass a little more than the pink, because staying power matters more than a good first look. Where the two passes disagree by more than a point, we say so on the card.

Run sheet · November 4, 2026

The autumn run, in overprint order

Each card links to the game’s own CrazyGames page. Nothing loads or plays on our site; we only describe what we found and send you there.

  1. Coin Picker title art: a blue pickaxe over an orange mine wall dotted with gems

    Idle digging clicker

    Number 1: Coin Picker

    The one we kept reopening after the slow pass had officially ended.

    • Pink8.6
    • Blue9.1
    • Overprint8.9
    What you do
    Hold the mouse button or Space and your axes chisel down through a mine, bouncing off the walls and knocking out blocks until the bounty bar fills and the round gets tallied.
    What stands out
    • Hitting the golden chute hands you extra axes mid-dig
    • Tally markers marked x2 double the count, so where coins land matters
    • Tools get better between rounds, up to a pitchfork that scoops more per pass
    Hand it to
    Someone who likes a number going up but still wants a hand on the controls.
    Open it on CrazyGames — Coin Picker on CrazyGames, which opens in a separate tab outside this survey
  2. Tiny Fishing logo beside a cartoon angler in a purple toque holding a small yellow fish

    Fishing upgrade game

    Number 2: Tiny Fishing

    Instantly readable; the depth meter is what brings you back.

    • Pink8.8
    • Blue8.5
    • Overprint8.6
    What you do
    Drop the line, then slide the hook sideways through schools of fish on the way back up. Each fish sells by rarity, and the takings buy a longer line, a bigger catch limit or better earnings while you are away.
    What stands out
    • Three fish tiers, with the golden legendary ones living past about 15 metres
    • An aquarium that fills with every new species and keeps earning offline
    • No final level: the line simply keeps going deeper
    Hand it to
    A short wait with one free thumb, or anyone new to upgrade games.
    Open it on CrazyGames — Tiny Fishing on CrazyGames, which opens in a separate tab outside this survey
  3. Arcade Tycoon logo with a gold crown above the lettering, set on a deep purple panel

    Arcade hall management

    Number 3: Arcade Casino Tycoon

    Slow to warm up, then the best long evening in the run.

    • Pink7.9
    • Blue8.7
    • Overprint8.4
    What you do
    You walk a small character around a dusty back room with WASD or the arrow keys, set up machines and grow the room, step by step, until the old storeroom is the liveliest hangout on the block.
    What stands out
    • You move through your own floor instead of clicking menus from above
    • The room visibly fills out as you expand, which makes progress easy to read
    • Listed as Android and Chromebook friendly on CrazyGames
    Hand it to
    Players who enjoy planning a layout and watching a space come alive.
    Open it on CrazyGames — Arcade Casino Tycoon on CrazyGames, which opens in a separate tab outside this survey
  4. PLINKO! art showing a triangle of pink, yellow, green and blue pegs in front of a cartoon moon

    Idle physics toy

    Number 4: PLINKO!

    Lovely to watch, lighter on decisions than the rest of the run.

    • Pink8.4
    • Blue8.0
    • Overprint8.2
    What you do
    Tap anywhere on the board, or hit DROP IT!, and chunky balls tumble through a ten-row triangle of pegs into buckets, and each bucket gains levels as it keeps catching them. Coins and XP from each landing feed five stacking upgrades.
    What stands out
    • A prestige option: give up the run in progress and keep permanent Shop Points
    • Ten Investment milestones, including extra pegs you drag into place yourself
    • Unlockable looks for the balls and the backdrop, with light and dark themes
    Hand it to
    A second monitor, a slow podcast, or anyone who finds falling things calming.
    Open it on CrazyGames — PLINKO! on CrazyGames, which opens in a separate tab outside this survey
  5. Fortune Match title lettering in gold with a four-leaf clover, under a smiling fortune-teller character

    Mystic match-3

    Number 5: Fortune Match

    A tidy, familiar puzzler that rewards a mouse more than a thumb.

    • Pink8.1
    • Blue7.6
    • Overprint7.8
    What you do
    Click one jewel, then its neighbour, to trade their places and line up three or more mystical symbols and clear each level’s quest.
    What stands out
    • Thousands of levels, according to the CrazyGames page
    • Boosters that help on the stubborn boards
    • Made by Boombit, released in 2023 and later brought to WebGL
    Hand it to
    Match-3 regulars who want something calm to do with a laptop at lunch.
    Open it on CrazyGames — Fortune Match on CrazyGames, which opens in a separate tab outside this survey

Contact sheet

The whole run on one strip

Five games, the screen shape each prefers and how long a sitting tends to last
GameKind of gameScreen shapeTypical sittingOverprint
Coin PickerIdle digging clickerPortrait, phone or laptop5 to 25 minutes8.9
Tiny FishingFishing upgrade gamePortrait, Android or laptop3 to 15 minutes8.6
Arcade Casino TycoonArcade hall managementLandscape, keyboard preferred20 to 60 minutes8.4
PLINKO!Idle physics toyEither orientation, any screen2 minutes or an afternoon in a corner tab8.2
Fortune MatchMystic match-3Desktop browser10 to 30 minutes7.8

Paper stock

Pick a game by the kind of attention you have left

Printers choose paper by what the job has to survive. Choosing a game works similarly: start from your mood and your hands, not from the genre label.

  • One thumb free

    Standing on the SkyTrain, a kettle about to boil. You want something that explains itself and forgives a sudden exit.

    Tiny Fishing, Coin Picker
  • Running in a corner

    A tab you glance at between emails. Satisfying motion, few decisions, and progress that keeps ticking quietly.

    PLINKO!
  • Building something

    A proper evening on a laptop with a keyboard, when planning a room and watching it fill out sounds like rest.

    Arcade Casino Tycoon
  • Patterns, please

    Lunch at a desk with a mouse. Swapping pieces into tidy lines is a familiar comfort and asks very little of the day.

    Fortune Match

What moves a number

Five things we mark, and how much each counts

Both passes use the same five marks. Clarity and comfort decide most of the pink score; staying power and pause-friendliness carry the blue one. The full rubric, with examples of what earns a low mark, is on the proof sheet.

  • First-minute clarityCan you play before reading anything?25%
  • Hands and controlsMouse, keys, thumb: does each feel natural?20%
  • Progress that sticksIs yesterday’s work still there today?20%
  • Easy to set downCan you stop mid-round without losing much?20%
  • Weight on the deviceLoad time, fan noise, battery drain.15%

Screens

Which glass suits which game

Coin Picker and Tiny Fishing are built tall, so a phone held upright feels right. Arcade Casino Tycoon wants a keyboard for walking your character around, and Fortune Match is most comfortable with a mouse on a laptop. PLINKO! turns to fit whatever it lands on.

Run lengths covers battery, sound, data and saving in more detail.

Logins

If you make a CrazyGames account

None of these games needs one to start, but an account carries progress between devices. If you sign up, type the address yourself rather than following a pop-up, give it a passphrase you use nowhere else, and add the extra login check (a code or a passkey) whenever the platform supports it.

Profile care covers account settings, plus the family controls your browser or phone already ships with.

Your first pull

A sensible first twenty minutes

  1. Choose by the tiles aboveMatch the game to your screen and your mood rather than to the top of the list.
  2. Check the address barThe page should sit on crazygames.com, with the game name in the path.
  3. Give it one honest roundSkip tutorials you don’t need, but finish a single loop before you decide anything.
  4. Set your own stopPick a time or a round count before you start. Drying time explains why we bother.

Questions from the post tray

What readers ask us most

Why print two scores when one would be simpler?

Because they measure different things. Plenty of games charm you on the first night and go flat by the fourth, and a few start clumsily and then grow on you. Arcade Casino Tycoon is the clearest example this run: 7.9 on the pink pass, 8.7 on the blue.

Is Facialesthe Survey a social casino, or connected to one?

Not at all, and not linked to any. Social casino products copy the look of real-money gaming using play tokens, frequently sold in top-ups. We run nothing of the sort: no tokens, no store, no accounts, no rewards. We write about free browser games and link to them on CrazyGames. The reasoning is laid out on What this isn’t.

Why doesn’t the game open right here on the page?

We decided early to stay a survey rather than a host. Sending you to the original page means you see the developer’s current version, their controls and their own notes, and it means our pages stay light enough to read on a weak connection.

Does a developer or platform pay to move a game up the sheet?

Never. Placement follows the overprint score and nothing else. Some outbound visits can bring us a referral fee, which is described in the footer, but that arrangement has no say in the order and nobody outside the studio sees a card before it is printed.

I cleared my browser data. Where did my fish go?

Progress lives with CrazyGames, not with us. All five pages list cloud saving, which works best if you are signed in to a CrazyGames account; as a guest, a browser clean-up can send you back to the start. We have no copy and no way to restore it.

What on earth does the name mean?

It is a leftover from a zine. The short version is on Who prints this; the shorter version is that we judge a game at face value first and then survey it properly.

Press log

Changes to the sheet, dated

  1. Autumn run printed

    Blue passes finished for all five games. Coin Picker moved from second to first after Theo’s week on a phone; Fortune Match stays on the sheet but drops to fifth.

  2. Arcade title checked

    CrazyGames now lists the management game as “Arcade Tycoon”, while its address still reads arcade-casino-tycoon. We kept the longer name on our card so readers can match the link.

  3. Policy pages reset

    Anjali rewrote the privacy statement to cover British Columbia’s PIPA as well as PIPEDA, and added the cookie ledger.

  4. Pink passes begin

    Twelve candidates went through first-evening play. Seven were set aside because their first screen asked for too much before showing the game.

Post tray

Send the studio a note

Suggest a game for the next run, point out a mistake on a card, or tell us which device made a game misbehave. Anjali reads the tray every weekday morning.

Unit 210, 55 Water Street
Vancouver BC V6B 1A1
[email protected]
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