Method

What we opened on 23 October 2026, and where each fact comes from.

Every game was opened in a browser on 23 October 2026. Facts come from the games' own pages, terms and store listings; estimates are marked est.

An island seen from above, its land divided into many small coloured territories, with boats on a dark sea — An island split into dozens of coloured territories, the kind of map Territorial.io is played on. Illustration made for PlayWharf, not a screenshot.

What we opened

Each of the 22 candidates was opened on 23 October 2026 in a Chromium browser on a desktop, set to British English. Where a game offers play without an account we played: a Territorial.io scenario against 512 bots, the Generals.io tutorial, a Lichess game against Stockfish level 1, a webDiplomacy game against 6 AI players and a Freeciv-web single-player game in 4000 BC.

Planets.nu needs an account, so we opened the public page of a running game, Slow Burn at turn 141, instead. We created no accounts, typed no email address and bought nothing. The Territorial.io page says where a human-check puzzle stopped us.

Where the numbers come from

Prices, ages and rules come from each game's own support, terms and privacy pages, quoted where it matters. Store ratings come from the UK pages of Google Play and the App Store. Player counts are what the games showed on 23 October 2026, from their own counters, logs and game lists.

The test machine's internet address was outside the UK, and the counts were read between about 17:30 and 18:30 UK time.

What est. means

Match lengths for the quick games and all check-in counts are our estimates, marked est. Each one names its basis: the 'build empires in minutes' line on the Territorial.io store page, the 335-turn Generals.io game, the '1 day /phase' games on webDiplomacy or the host days in the Planets.nu game list. We give no scores and no stars.

Money and random items

For every game we read the shop or membership page. Where a shop was hidden from guests we searched the page scripts for loot box, crate, spin, wheel, gacha and raffle code, and checked store listings for PEGI's 'includes random items' note.

Since 2026 PEGI rates games that sell paid random items at 16 or above. None of the 6 sells them; War.app and the Supremacy games were left out over this rule.

Corrections

Shops, ages and rules change. If a page is out of date, write to hello@playwharf.com with a link to the change, and we will check it and update the page and its date.