About Tab Tavern

Tab Tavern is two people. Ilse plays the slow stuff: farms, builders, anything with a bazaar. Tom plays anything with a ranking and loses at most of it. Between us we've been playing browser games since dial-up and we got tired of not being able to find an honest word about any of them.

The name

Browser games live in a tab you keep open all day and glance at between other things. A tavern is where you go to sit for a bit and talk about what's good. That's the whole idea. Also tabtavern.com was available.

Why five

Because a review takes one of us a month, and we have jobs. Five games we've each lived with beats fifty we've each glanced at. When something new clears the bar it goes on; when something on the list slips, it comes off. The notes box on the front page is where that shows up.

Money

The "Play" buttons are affiliate links. If you register with a publisher through one, they may pay us a small fee. That's the only income the site has and it roughly covers hosting. Scores are locked before links are added, the list is sorted by score, and nobody at a publisher has ever asked us to change one. If that ever happens it'll be in the notes.

What we don't cover

Anything you have to install. Mobile-only games. Anything with real-money gambling, including the "social casino" genre. And anything that stops being playable for free within the first week, however nice it looks.