Getting started on GameCompil
You have landed on GameCompil and you want to understand in five minutes how the site works: this guide explains how to start a run, where your scores go, and at what point creating an account becomes useful.
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Play right now, without an account
No game in the catalogue asks you to create an account in order to be played in full. You open a game’s page, you press the launch button, and the run starts in your browser: nothing to download, nothing to install, no limited trial version. That is the founding principle of the site, and it has no exceptions.
As an anonymous visitor, your best score is kept in your browser’s memory, on this device only. You can close the tab and come back later: your record is still there. It does not follow you from one device to another, though, and it disappears if you clear your browsing data.
Choosing your first game
The catalogue is sorted into four families — arcade, retro, reflex and puzzle — which correspond to four very different kinds of enjoyment. For a first run, the simplest approach is to start from what you feel like doing for the next five minutes.
A few markers to point you:
- After immediate action and rising tension: head for the arcade.
- After a classic you already know by heart: head for retro.
- After a very short run you can restart straight away: head for reflex.
- After thinking without being rushed by a clock: head for the puzzles.
Every game page describes the rules, the keyboard and touch controls, and the way a run ends. So you can know what to expect before you even start the first one.
What an account adds
The account is free and is created through a simple link sent to your inbox: there is no password to choose or to remember. It adds nothing to the gameplay — the games are exactly the same — but it changes what becomes of your performances.
Once signed in, three things are added:
- Your records are synchronised and follow you across all your devices.
- Your scores enter the leaderboards, all-time, monthly or weekly.
- You unlock trophies, which are worth points and feed an overall leaderboard shared by the whole catalogue.
Your earlier runs are not lost
Records set anonymously can be imported at the moment you sign in: what you achieved before creating your account is kept, with no duplicates.
Playing on a phone
Every game is playable on a smartphone and on a tablet: touch controls replace the keyboard, and the playfield adapts to the orientation of the screen. Some titles are more comfortable in landscape, particularly those that call for horizontal precision.
If a score does not show up on the leaderboard
Scores are checked on the server before being ranked, and only signed-in players appear in the tables. A score set anonymously therefore stays in your browser, and never joins the leaderboard.