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Why I make handmade web games instead of mobile games

A few notes on why erandel.com games live in the browser instead of an app store, and how that changes the way they are designed.

Fantasy background used as erandel.com visual base

Every time I show the games to someone they ask me the same thing: "wouldn't you publish them on the App Store or Google Play?". The honest answer is no, at least today, and not because I can't — but because doing so would change the kind of game I make.

Zero friction to start

The browser doesn't ask you to install anything, doesn't ask for permissions, doesn't push you through a notification policy. You hit "Play" and a second later you're in. That enables things that are expensive in app stores: showing the game to a friend by opening a link on their phone, or posting it on a forum and having someone try it without a second thought.

Continuous deployment

When I fix a bug in Triara or tweak balance in Vectron, I ship it and within minutes the change is live for every player. No external review, no forced updates per device. That's huge when you work solo: the loop between spotting a problem and fixing it is short, so it pays to ship small, frequent changes.

Browser as a design constraint

The web also forces useful limits. You can't assume a lot of power or a lot of bandwidth. Your UI has to read on a 320px screen. The initial load has to be light. That constraint acts as a filter: it pushes you toward leaner, less bloated ideas.

Commercial independence

An app store adds a middleman with shifting rules. Today they approve something, tomorrow they require a new quality metric, the day after they bury you because your monetisation changed. The web has its own problems (SEO, hosting, AdSense), but at least the commercial agreements are between you and your players, not a gatekeeper.

What you lose

Not everything is upside. You lose store presence — a lot of people still discover games there. You lose native push notifications. And sometimes you lose raw performance: things that would run effortlessly in native Unity require fighting WebGL or the GPU on the web. For the genres erandel.com covers (a turn-based RPG, a word-guessing game, a modest tower defense), it isn't a problem. For a heavy 3D action game it would be.

Where I'm heading

The plan is to keep treating every game as a well-made web app: fast, maintained, accessible and honest. If at some point a specific game asks for an app store, fine. Until then, the browser is where they belong.