Skill Games

Skill games test your memory, your reflexes and your aim. It's the category with the most games on the site, more than 5,000: mahjong, matching, puzzles, bubble shooter, mazes, Snake, Pacman and lots of quick challenges for a few spare minutes. They're all free and open in your browser, with nothing to download.

For thinking it through

Matching, Memory, Puzzle and Moving Blocks make up more than half the category, and none of them are in a hurry. Matching and Memory are solitaire mahjong, matching pairs and tile-linking games, like Shanghai, Mariposa Kyodai and Encuentra las Parejas. Puzzle includes merge and match variants (Kubes, Merge Fruit, Mahjongg Dimensions). Moving Blocks mixes fit-the-pieces brainteasers with Tetris Arcade, a classic created by Alexey Pajitnov in 1984, and games like Candy Craze and Jelly Cubes. Maze and Roll the Ball are about guiding a ball or a character to the exit: A Maze Race, Amaze and Gyroball.

For reflexes

Here time is in charge. Catch is about fishing, slicing fruit or grabbing things before they fall, like Fruit Ninja and Gold Miner. Dodging and Don't Get Caught are the opposite: dodge or run away, with games like Ski Free and Road Crossing. Jumping and Running are endless runners with tight jumps, like Temple Run 2 and Super Mario Run. Parking is careful maneuvering, and Bubble Shooter is played by firing colored bubbles to group them and pop them.

The arcade classics

Snake, Pacman, Pong and Pinball are the most recognizable. Pong, from Atari, is one of the first commercial video games, and here you'll find versions like Atari Pong and Mario vs Luigi Pong. In Snake there's Snake, Google Snake and Slither.io, which is played online against other players. Pacman takes place in a maze: you eat dots and dodge ghosts. And in Pinball, with Classic Pinball or Zoo Pinball, the goal is to keep the ball in play.

Where to start

If you never play this kind of thing, try a Mahjong or a Bubble Shooter: you get the rules right away and can stop whenever you like. For a reflex challenge, Temple Run 2. For something classic, Snake. And if you want to think without pressure, a maze.

Tips for playing

In mahjong and matching games, start with the tiles that free up the most space and leave the isolated ones for last. In bubble shooter, bounce the bubbles off the walls to reach the tricky gaps. In reflex games, look a little ahead of your character: you'll see obstacles in time. And in memory games, try to remember where the cards are by area of the board, not one by one.

Finding your way around a huge section

With more than 5,000 games, the main page is just a shop window. The most practical approach is to go in by subcategory: there you have every version of what you already know you like, such as all the Pacman games, all the mazes or all the bubble shooters. If you don't know where to start, look at the most played in each one; they tend to be the ones that work best and are easiest to understand.