About

Pocket Offline started as a shared note between three friends who kept swapping recommendations for games that don't beg you to stay online. We got tired of downloading something for a train ride only to hit a login wall or a timer that ticks in real time. So we decided to test games the boring, thorough way — install, play for hours, take notes, delete, repeat.

Every game we cover has to run fully offline, at least for its core loop. We check that on planes and in the basement with airplane mode on, not just on paper. If a game secretly needs a connection to save progress or unlock levels, we say so up front.

We write for people who actually want to enjoy the game, not chase a store ranking. That means we talk about controls, pacing, battery drain, and whether the fun lasts past the first hour. Short games get praised for being short when they earn it.

Nobody pays us to feature a game. We pick titles because they caught our attention, a reader flagged them, or we stumbled onto something odd and interesting in the store's back pages.

Lukas Bergmann — Lukas has been reviewing mobile games for over a decade and still keeps a drawer of old phones for testing. He handles most of the RPG and simulation coverage.