The people behind Hazelburngames and their noisy hobby
Hazelburngames began with a simple problem. Our group of friends, scattered across Britain, wanted to keep playing games together, but most video call evenings felt flat. We started testing browser party games one by one, keeping notes on which ones actually produced laughter and which fizzled out after a round.
Those notes grew into this site. Today Hazelburngames focuses on one corner of gaming: party, drawing and word-guessing games you can play in a browser. We are not interested in covering everything. We want to know these few games deeply, so that when you open one with your friends, it works.
Every game here has been played across several evenings with different groups: close friends, mixed families, curious newcomers and public rooms full of strangers. We note what happens, argue about it, and turn it into reviews and scores that reflect real experience rather than feature lists or press releases.
We keep things simple. There are no accounts, nothing to buy and no clutter. Read a review, choose a game, and click through to play on the publisher’s own website. If something changes in a game, or you think we have got something wrong, tell us and we will look again.
Play it with real people
No review is written after a single solo session. Party games only reveal themselves in company, so every score comes from evenings with real groups of varied sizes and confidence levels.
Write for the host
Our readers are usually the person organising the evening. We write with them in mind: how quickly a game gets going, how it handles nervous guests, and what settings make the biggest difference.
Change our minds out loud
Games update and opinions shift with more play. When we revise a score or ranking, we explain why, so readers can see how our thinking has developed rather than just a new number.