Independent notes · Ireland
TroopSift is a three-person editorial desk. We install free-to-play titles from Google Play, keep them on ordinary phones for a few evenings, and write down the things a store listing never mentions.
Three games are in the catalogue at the moment. Each one was played to the end of our checklist before a single line was written about it.
On the desk now
Catalogue
Short catalogue on purpose: a game only appears here once someone at the desk has finished the whole checklist on their own phone. Ratings below were read from the Irish Google Play listing.
Adrian Zarzycki
4.2
Strategy · PEGI 3You begin with one shed, a hand-assembled chassis and a queue of orders. Stations get linked into a line, then the line is torn up again because the next model needs the work done in another order. It keeps ticking while the app is closed, so a sitting can be five minutes or a full hour.
Open in Google Play
InnoGames GmbH
4.4
City building · PEGI 7A city builder split between an elven and a human path, with a research tree deciding what you are allowed to put down next. Roads, houses and workshops have to fit a plot that never feels quite big enough. The pace is deliberate: plans are made for tomorrow evening, not for the next thirty seconds.
Open in Google Play
Game Insight
4.5
Village sim · PEGI 3A Stone Age settlement that grows through small errands: clear the jungle, plant a field, raise a hut for the next family. Tasks are short and legible, which makes this the easy one to hand to a child sitting beside you. The map keeps opening long after the tutorial has stopped holding your hand.
Open in Google Play
Method
The same five stages for every title, on the same three phones. Nothing is written up from a trailer or a store screenshot.
| Stage | What we look at | Time on it | Where we test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stage oneFirst install | Download size, the permissions the game asks for, whether the tutorial can be skipped, and which languages the menus offer. | 20–30 minutes | Pixel 6a, Android 14, home Wi-Fi |
| Stage twoOpening hour | Pacing of the first hour, how often play is interrupted, and how legible the menus stay on a small screen. | About one hour | Galaxy A54, mobile connection |
| Stage threeLong evenings | Whether the map keeps opening up, if progress stalls once the early levels are done, how warm the handset gets and what a long sitting costs the battery. | Three evenings | Pixel 6a and Galaxy A54, side by side |
| Stage fourInterruptions | Behaviour with the screen locked, a call arriving mid-session, flight mode, and what the game does when you return a day later. | Two days, on and off | Redmi Note 12, flight mode |
| Stage fiveSecond read | Notes are reopened a week later, compared with the current Play listing, and the Irish rating is checked once more. | Forty minutes | Desktop and phone together |
Titles are picked from the free part of Google Play, installed on our own handsets and written up only after stage five. When an update changes the way a game plays, it goes back to stage two and the note is rewritten from scratch.
Contact
Corrections are the most useful post we get: a wrong developer name, a title that has left the Irish store, a rating that no longer matches. Suggestions for the next check are welcome too.
Post is read on weekdays and most of it is answered within two working days. Three people share the address, so replies come signed.
There is no form anywhere on this site. Nothing you type in your own mail client passes through our server.
Questions
Yes. There is no account, no membership and nothing to buy here. Every note on the site is open to read.
We show no advertising, sell no placements and take no commission from the Google Play links. The desk is funded by the three of us, which is also why the catalogue is short.
Each title is installed and kept on a phone for at least three evenings. The descriptions here come from our own notes; the store listing is used only to check facts such as the developer name.
Store ratings move as new reviews arrive and they differ between countries. The numbers on this page were read from the Irish listing on 26 August 2026 and are checked again at stage five.
You are welcome to write to the desk. A place in the catalogue is not for sale, and we say no far more often than yes.
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