Fair Free Games: My Personal Scorecard Before I Let Mum Tap Install
My mother Evelyn will tap Install if the icon looks friendly. That is not a character flaw. That is what a lifetime of trusting shopfronts looks like when the shopfront moved into a glowing rectangle.
My job, as the family systems person, is not to lecture her about "the attention economy." It is to decide — in under two minutes on a noisy Play Store page — whether a free game will respect her or ambush her. I already wrote why free games show ads. This is the sharper tool I actually use: a personal scorecard before I let her tap Install.
I built ChillBrain under the same rules. Scoring our own game honestly is part of the point.
How to use this scorecard
Each row is Pass / Soft fail / Hard fail.
- Hard fail → do not install (or uninstall).
- Two or more soft fails → walk away unless she specifically asked for that title and you can sit with her for the first session.
- All passes → still watch the first ten minutes together. Store pages lie by omission.
Run it on the store listing and after a fresh install with a new player profile — listings and live behaviour diverge.
1) Can she finish content without paying?
Pass: Every level or mode that was advertised as part of the free game is completable without a purchase. Purchases are optional cosmetics, tips, or convenience. Soft fail: A "continue" or energy gate appears, but waiting recovers progress without payment. Hard fail: Progress stops behind a paywall mid-campaign, or "free" was bait for a chapter that requires money.
Seniors feel stuck purchases as personal failure ("I must have done it wrong") more often than as commerce. If the game needs money to remain a game, it is not a free game.
ChillBrain's self-score: Pass. Lifelines and helpers are earned by playing; rewarded video is optional; nothing required to finish the published levels.
2) Who decides when an ad appears?
Pass: Ads stay outside the play area (banner strip) and/or rewarded video plays only after an explicit tap like "Watch ad for a gift." Soft fail: Interstitials between levels, but rare, skippable quickly, never during an active puzzle. Hard fail: Full-screen ads mid-move, fake X buttons, countdown traps, or ads that reopen when dismissed.
I have watched Evelyn put a tablet face-down after interruptive ads. That is not "engagement." That is exit.
ChillBrain: Pass on design intent — one banner outside play, rewarded only on tap. (Store review and policy compliance are a separate marathon; the product rule is still the product rule.)
3) Does the UI argue with older hands?
Pass: Large tap targets, readable type, high contrast, no precision-taxing clutter. See Big Buttons or Bust. Soft fail: Mostly fine on tablet, awkward on phone. Hard fail: Tiny moving hitboxes, gesture-only controls with no tap alternative, critical buttons in thumb-unreachable corners.
If she needs three attempts to tap "Next," the rest of your ethics do not matter. She will leave.
4) Is there a timer wearing a costume?
Pass: No countdown on puzzle turns. Difficulty comes from structure, not panic. Soft fail: Optional timed modes clearly labelled as such; default play is untimed. Hard fail: Main campaign forces countdown clocks, "hurry" meters, or streak punishment for thinking.
We almost shipped a "gentle pace bar" in ChillBrain. Evelyn's face changed. There is no kind timer. Story in I Playtested ChillBrain With My Mother.
ChillBrain: Pass. No timers across modes.
5) What does failure sound like?
Pass: Neutral or encouraging feedback. Help is offered. No shame streak theatre. Soft fail: Generic buzzes, but recoverable without scolding copy. Hard fail: Harsh fail fanfares, "you lose" language, public ranking humiliation on a first session.
When an early ChillBrain build buzzed on a failed swap, my mother apologized to the game. We ripped that pattern out. If a product makes a seventy-year-old apologize to silicon, it failed a moral unit test.
6) Permissions and data appetite
Pass: Asks for little or nothing beyond what gameplay needs; plain-language privacy link; no contact scraping to "find friends" as a first-run wall. Soft fail: Optional login for sync/backup she might want later (Google save in ChillBrain sits here — useful, not mandatory to play). Hard fail: Demands contacts, precise location, microphone, or SMS on first launch without a story that makes sense to her.
On a new phone especially, keep installs lean — the Nanay phone checklist assumes one calm pastime, not five permission-hungry "free" toys.
7) Can she understand the home screen after a week of updates?
Pass: Stable layout; updates do not reshuffle her icons into chaos; settings are findable. Soft fail: Occasional tutorial nag after update. Hard fail: Endless soft-launch popups, rotating home offers, or "new event!" modals every cold start.
Seniors learn by spatial memory ("the green one is bottom-left"). Products that rearrange the room every Tuesday are hostile even when each popup is "dismissible."
8) Is the store page honest about what genre this is?
Pass: Screenshots match real play; genre labels are accurate; "offline" means offline. Soft fail: Marketing polish, but first session matches the promise. Hard fail: Screenshots from a different game mode, fake UI, or "relaxing" label on a hyper-competitive timer combat game.
If you need trick photography to get Installs, you will need worse tricks to keep retention. Evelyn does not need that in her afternoon.
Scoring ChillBrain out loud (so this is not a sales tract)
| Row | ChillBrain |
|---|---|
| Finish without paying | Pass |
| Who controls ads | Pass (by design) |
| Older hands / UI | Pass (obsessively) |
| Timers | Pass |
| Failure tone | Pass (after we learned the hard way) |
| Permissions appetite | Soft pass / soft fail depending on whether she opts into sync |
| Stable home / nags | Pass for the web app experience we control |
| Honest listing | Pass — we say senior-friendly, no timers, and we mean it |
That table is the standard I want other free games to clear before they land on her dock. When we miss, we fix the product — we do not redefine "fair."
A two-minute store ritual you can copy
- 1. Read the first three screenshots. Would she know what to tap?
- 2. Skim recent reviews for "ads," "paywall," "timer," "scam."
- 3. Install only if rows 1–2 look like Pass.
- 4. Play ten minutes on her account before you leave the room.
- 5. If anything Hard fails, uninstall while she watches — so she learns that Delete is allowed.
You are not being overprotective. You are being the shopkeeper she thinks the store still has.
What I tell other sons and daughters
Free can be fair. Free can also be a funnel with a smiley icon. The difference is visible in the first session if you know what to look for: who controls attention, who controls progress, and whether failure feels like learning or like shame.
If you want a default pastime that aims at the Pass column on purpose — big tiles, no timers, optional rewarded ads, no mid-puzzle ambush — play ChillBrain free in the browser. For the longer design diary behind those choices, keep the playtesting guide and the touch-UI lessons nearby. And if you are putting any of this on a new handset, start with the phone setup checklist so the casino never gets a home-screen address.
Fair is a practice. The scorecard is how I keep practicing before Install.