We're the Slodds — a family that makes browser games together. Not a studio. Not a company. Just us, building stuff we think is fun and putting it on the internet for free. Over the past few months, we've shipped 14 games. Here's what we've learned.
1. Start Small, Ship Fast
Our first games were tiny. Lights Out is basically "collect things while hiding." Sink or Swim is Hangman with a pirate skin. Neither took more than a day or two. But they shipped. They work. People play them.
The temptation is always to make something huge. Resist it. A small game that exists beats a big game that doesn't.
2. Let the Kids Pick the Ideas
"What if there was a game where you take care of ferrets?" That's how Ferret Pets happened. "Can we make a drawing app?" That became Strawberry Draw. Kids have the best ideas because they don't overthink feasibility. They just say what would be cool.
Half our games started as a kid saying "what if..." and us figuring out how to make it real.
3. Browser Games Are Underrated
No app store approval. No downloads. No updates. You push a file to a server and anyone in the world can play it in 2 seconds. The browser is the most accessible gaming platform ever built, and most developers ignore it because it's not "real" game dev.
4. Sound Makes Everything Better
The difference between a silent game and one with even basic sound effects is enormous. Autoshots went from feeling flat to feeling alive just by adding weapon sounds and a background track. Sound is 50% of the experience and takes 5% of the development time.
5. Mobile Support Isn't Optional
Over half our players are on phones. If a game doesn't work on mobile, half the audience doesn't exist. Touch controls, responsive layouts, and performance optimization aren't nice-to-haves — they're the baseline.
6. Save Files Change Everything
Plinko without save files is a toy. Plinko with save files is a game people come back to. The difference is localStorage — 3 lines of JavaScript that turn a one-time experience into something people return to.
7. Horror Games Are the Easiest Win
Night Corridor is our most shared game. Horror is the easiest genre to make impactful because fear doesn't require fancy graphics. A dark screen, limited visibility, and good sound design creates more tension than any AAA lighting engine.
8. The Game Lab Is Our Secret Weapon
Our Game Lab is where we put experiments — games that aren't finished, ideas we're testing, weird prototypes. It takes the pressure off. Not everything has to be polished. Some of our best games started as messy Lab experiments.
What's Next
We're not stopping. The kids have a list of ideas longer than we can build. Multiplayer games, more creative tools, maybe a cooking sim. Whatever sounds fun on a Saturday afternoon.
If you want to play what we've built so far, browse all our games. Everything is free, no downloads, no accounts. Just click and play.