6.8/10
Fortune Gem
A cascade-matching grid puzzle dressed up as a fortune-teller's table. The chain reactions are genuinely satisfying; the interruptions between them are not.
Entry 46 · 16 July 2026 · Grid puzzle
Play diary
Kept since 2023
Updated 16 July 2026
Six small games, played properly, then written down.
I am Jonah Petrakis and this is my diary. I pick a free-to-play arcade or casual game, keep it on my phone for a fortnight, play it in the gaps of an ordinary week, and then write what it was actually like. Nobody pays me to do it and none of the games I write about have a cash side to them.
How the diary works
Most write-ups about small mobile games are produced by someone who opened the thing for four minutes. I try to do the opposite. A game stays on my phone for at least two weeks before I say anything about it, and I record a line or two after each session — what I did, what annoyed me, whether I came back voluntarily or out of duty. The entry you read at the end is assembled from those notes, so it is closer to a log than to a first impression.
I play on two devices on purpose: an ageing budget handset with 3 GB of memory, and a mid-range phone from last year. If a game only behaves on the newer one, that goes in the entry, because plenty of people are playing on the older kind.
Every entry ends with a score out of ten. The score is my judgement, not an average of the criteria below — sometimes one weak area sinks a game that is otherwise fine, and sometimes a game gets away with a lot because the core loop is that good.
Latest entries
7.3/10
Airplane
Flick a paper plane down a corridor of thermals and hoops. A lovely twenty-second loop that never quite grows into anything larger.
Entry 45 · 3 July 2026 · Physics arcade
7.0/10
Aviation
One thumb, one altitude line, one long climb across a scrolling sky. Beautifully direct, and thin once you have seen the third region.
Entry 44 · 18 June 2026 · One-touch arcade
8.1/10
Garuda
A gliding game with a rhythm game hiding inside it. The best-feeling controls of anything I have logged this year.
Entry 43 · 6 June 2026 · Glide / rhythm
7.4/10
Super Ace
A card-clearing puzzle with a cascade mechanic that takes an hour to click and then refuses to let go. Rough opening, strong middle.
Entry 42 · 23 May 2026 · Card puzzle
7.6/10
Chicken Game
Hop a chicken across lanes of moving traffic and widening rivers. The clearest, most honest arcade loop in this batch.
Entry 41 · 9 May 2026 · Lane hopper
The five things I score
I use the same five headings in every entry so that scores mean something across the diary. They are mine; I made them up because the usual four categories never told me what I wanted to know about a phone game.
- Thumb FeelThe physical business of playing it. Does a tap land where you meant it to, does the game respond on the frame you pressed, can you play it one-handed on a bus without your hand cramping?
- First Five MinutesHow much sense the game makes before you have read anything. A high score here means I understood the loop without a tutorial wall, and the opening did not hold my hands behind my back for ten forced steps.
- Session ShapeWhether the game respects the length of a real break. Can it be finished in ninety seconds at a bus stop, or does it insist on twelve minutes and a timer you have to wait out?
- Replay PullWhat brings you back on day nine, when novelty is gone. Skill ceiling, variety, a score you actually want to beat — as opposed to a daily nag notification.
- Ad MannersHow a free game funds itself without ruining itself. Short, skippable, placed between runs rather than in the middle of them, and never at the exact instant your thumb was moving.
Thumbstick Diary is one person’s written record of playing small video games, published for information only. Everything logged here is an ordinary free arcade or puzzle app: nothing in them costs or returns cash, the only figures that move are in-game scores, and this site neither sells anything nor recommends anything commercially. I have no working relationship with any studio, platform or app store, and the titles named above are trade marks held by whoever made those games, used here so that you know which game an entry concerns.