My son told me yesterday: "Dad, can you please turn off the ads on Poki?"
I asked him: "On what?"
Son: "Poki, I play games but I keep getting ads. Please turn them off."
I believe many of you, like me, were confused. Poki? What is that even?
A quick Google search reveals that it is a site launched back in 2014 by the Dutch duo Michiel van Amerongen and Bas Moeys, which allows you to play around 1700 different games, reminiscent of the old flash games. That number is increasing daily as small developers add their games to the platform, of course after passing a review. Although the games are advertised as free, that is partially not true because after every few levels, you will be interrupted by one of the numerous ads. Additionally, in the games, you can earn some bonus coins or power-ups by watching ads.
Similarly, they are advertised as kids-friendly, which is definitely not true. Although there is no 18+ content, some games are quite violent or contain scenes inappropriate for children. To wash away any potential guilt, they have an option for a completely kid-friendly version of the site without violence, without ads. But also without fun. Because, let's be honest, no one will play those games.
All games are played in the browser and there are no downloads or installations, and you can create your own account or play as a guest, but all your progress in that case is saved in cookies, so if you delete them, you lose everything you achieved.
Some games allow fullscreen, while in others you are stuck playing in a small window.
I clicked on several versions of both types of games to see the principle, and mostly, the majority of games are designed for mouse and keyboard play (although there is also a mobile version of the site), with simple controls and basic gameplay. There are various versions of games we all know well, such as temple runs, various mazes, different versions of Tetris, puzzles, Arkanoid, the legendary Snake, various races, sports competitions, versions of Minecraft, and hundreds more games.
When you hover your mouse over the game icon, a short gameplay video appears, so you can get an idea of what it's about. Also, although there is no option to leave reviews (which might be good because it prevents inappropriate speech), for each game you can leave an upvote or downvote, so even those numbers can be an indicator of whether it’s worth clicking on it.
I admit, it’s easy to lose track of time when you have hundreds of shiny icons on your screen and you can click from one game to another at will, looking for something to kill time at work/break/in school.
Honestly, just browsing the site and trying out games, two hours flew by without me even blinking. Admittedly, I can't now recall the names of at least two games I played because every time a video ad popped up, I lost interest in that game and switched to another.
However, it is possible to circumvent this by using certain tools that block ads, but as a portal, we do not promote or encourage the use of them, so you will have to find more information about that yourself...
