Every game here runs in your browser. Nothing to install, nothing to buy, no account.
Chess · Chess puzzles · Sudoku · 2048 · Social games

Chess, sudoku and the rest of the old guard, sorted onto one page for anyone who wants a game.

Chess, chess puzzles, sudoku and 2048 sit at the top, and a few social games round out the list. All of it is hosted on TopPicksAU’s own servers, so there is no download, no sign-up and nothing to purchase. Players, round length, difficulty and rating appear on every card, which makes choosing a matter of a glance.

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8games ready to play
0installs or registrations
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♞♜♙♖♘♝
Chess A proper game from start to finish, against the computer or whoever is on the couch beside you.
For a five-minute gap

Chess puzzles

One board, one winning idea to find, and you are done inside three minutes.
For settling in

Chess

A proper game from start to finish, against the computer or whoever is on the couch beside you.
For a small screen

Sudoku

Pick a square, pick a number. Made for a phone held in one hand.
For starting cold

2048

Slide the tiles and watch the numbers double. Nobody needs the rules explained.
The games

Every game gets a card, and every card tells you the same four things

The list opens with chess, chess puzzles, sudoku and 2048, and the social games follow further down. Whatever the game, its card shows the same four badges: players, round length, difficulty and the rating players gave it. Filter or reorder as you like, then settle on one.

12 of 12 games shown

Board

Chess puzzles

A single position pulled from a game somebody actually played. Work out the best line, then call up the next one.

Single-player 1–3 min Medium
4.7 fast training
Play now
Puzzle

2048

Slide matching tiles into each other, double them, chase the 2048 tile. Sixty seconds to learn, considerably longer to walk away from.

Single-player 3–5 min Easy
4.6 quickest start
Play now
Social

Outback Gold

Five reels you can keep turning for as long as you please. There is nothing here to purchase.

Single-player Reels, ~5 min Easy
4.4 most played
Play now
Social

Lucky 7s Classic

Three reels, one line, exactly as it was done decades ago. Nothing whatsoever to learn.

Single-player Reels, ~5 min Easy
4.3 least to learn
Play now
Social

Reef Riches

Five reels with a chest round that hands out extra turns. Like the rest of the list, nothing to purchase.

Single-player Reels, ~5 min Easy
4.2 top chest round
Play now
Social

Fruit Wheel

Three rings of fruit in a brisk little game you can run with one thumb on the tram.

Single-player Rings, ~5 min Easy
4.1 thumb-friendly
Play now
On its way Board

Checkers

Draughts on the standard 8×8 board, played against the computer or a friend.

1–2 players 10–20 min Easy
— no rating yet
Still in the works
On its way Cards

Solitaire

Klondike, the one that shipped with every office computer for twenty years.

Single-player 5–10 min Easy
— no rating yet
Still in the works
On its way Puzzle

Minesweeper

Clear the field without tripping a mine. Choose from three grid sizes.

Single-player 2–10 min Medium
— no rating yet
Still in the works
On its way Arcade

Tetris

Stack the tumbling pieces so they lock together. Plays with a keyboard or on a touchscreen.

Single-player 3–8 min Medium
— no rating yet
Still in the works
Getting started

Three steps and you are in

Three steps is barely a process at all, but the question comes up often enough that we have spelled it out.

01

Read the cards

The badges are identical on every card: players, round length, difficulty, rating. Got three minutes? Open the chess puzzles. Forty? A full game of chess. In no rush whatsoever? Sudoku. Fancy a few casual rounds? One of the social games.

02

Hit play

Press the button and the game runs on TopPicksAU itself, inside the tab you are already looking at. Nothing is fetched from an app store, no plugin asks for permission, nothing is saved to your device and no account is set up.

03

Play, leave, return

Nothing on this site trails after you once you leave. Close the tab when you have had your fill, and the list will be waiting whenever you next feel like a round.

Our criteria

A short list stays useful only while someone is minding it

The thinking behind TopPicksAU is simple: people keep coming back to the games they learned as kids. So chess and chess puzzles go first and the other classics follow. None of them wants a tutorial, a login or any fiddling about before you make your first move.

Known games first

Every title here has been around for generations. The rules are already in your head, which means nothing needs reading before you start.

On our servers, in your browser

We host every game on hardware we look after. Anything that would call for an install, an account or one particular device is left off.

Always open

Nothing is locked away and nothing is for sale, and that goes for the social games as much as the classics. There is no registration to get through either.

Four badges, judged alike

We measure players, round length, difficulty and rating the same way for every game, so one card can fairly be held up against another.

Revisited from time to time

Now and then we sit down and play each game right through. Should one drift from what its card claims, it gets fixed or removed.

Questions

Things people ask us

Chess and the puzzles come up most, followed by browser requirements and the social games.

No. Everything on TopPicksAU opens exactly as you see it, with no subscription and no account attached. Choose a card and the game starts.

Uncomplicated reel-style games for one player, there purely for enjoyment. They follow the same rules as the rest of the list: browser only, nothing to purchase, no registration.

Knowing which way each piece moves will do. The chess game includes a gentle computer opponent for newcomers, and the moment you lift a piece the board shows every square it can legally reach.

Chess means a complete game, and a complete game takes however long it takes. A puzzle puts you straight into one position from a real game where a single line is plainly the strongest. If you are after practice, the puzzles are the quicker route.

Anyone who finishes a round here can rate the game. The star reflects the average of those ratings, and the short remark alongside it is whatever players mention most.

The full list runs in a current Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge. The games use standard web technology, so your browser needs no extras.

Yes. Each game scales down to a phone screen and works with touch. Chess and sudoku are especially comfortable on a small display.

We are. The whole page is hosted on TopPicksAU’s servers, so a single privacy policy and a single set of terms apply to all of it.

Is there a game we have missed?

If it is a classic that starts straight from the browser without an install, let us know. And if a card says something that does not look right, tell us that too.

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