About the Editors, Their Sources and Their Funding

What These Pages Publish, and Why

Reviews, guides and reference explainers for one game fill these pages, and nothing else does. Every page names its primary sources: the client inside the game, the maker's own rules document, the response its game server sends that client, and the licence registers that publish a file anyone can download.

Some numbers stay out of reach. Figures that resist verification are printed as not confirmed instead of guessed at, because a reader about to deposit their money deserves a visible gap in front of them. Start with the Falling Pickaxe review, which is the clearest example of that rule working.

In Short, What a Reader Gets Here

Here's the short version: it's 9 pages about one game, and each figure is printed beside the document it came from. We've no casino accounts, no deposits and no rankings for sale.

If a figure isn't printed by the studio, an operator or a regulator, it doesn't go on a page. That's the entire editorial rule, and the sections below show how it holds up.

Subject

One instant game, Falling Pickaxe

Pages

9 across 2 sections and the front page

Publishing since

14 Oct 2026

Return quoted

95%, published on the maker's game page, in its catalogue data and in its release announcement; no screen in the game prints it

Funding

Affiliate links, disclosed beside every sponsored button

Author

Imogen Alvar, instant-game tester

What Should You Check Before You Start?

Three checks are worth making before you start reading anywhere on this site, and they take about a minute. The maker states one ceiling on its game page and a different one in its own announcement, so open both in advance.

1. Open the rules screen in the game and note that it states no return and no ceiling at all.
2. Open the maker's own page for the game and write down the return and the ceiling it prints.
3. Open the release announcement and compare its ceiling with the one on the page.
4. Compare what the three documents say before you trust any summary.

Only the announcement is fixed once published; the other two move whenever the maker redraws one of its own pages. Explore the reference section for the detail behind each one, and note that all 9 pages carry the date of their most recent check.

Who Writes and Signs These Pages

Every page on Falling Pickaxe is written and signed by Imogen Alvar, the instant-game tester. Tests one game at a time and prints only what the game itself, its server or a public register will back: plays the title in the maker's own free demo and records every round the game server returns, reads the rules screen end to end and the string table behind it, decrypts the launch response to see which figures the game keeps to itself, holds the maker's promotional page against its own press release when their numbers disagree, and looks the supplier up in the licence register that confirms it rather than taking a seal in a footer at its word. The author profile sets out the method and lists all 9 published pages.

A byline and two dates on every page. Each content page carries them, published and updated. The author profile sets out what stands behind that byline - the recorded session, the screens read and the register checks - and the person who tested the game is the person who answers a correction.

Where the Facts on These Pages Begin

Facts on these pages begin in 3 places, in a fixed order of source. First the game itself, tested in its official free demo with a recorded session. Then the maker's documents, its public game page and the rules text inside the client. Last the regulator register, opened on the day a page is written to see whether it carries the supplier at all.

The order matters because sources disagree more often than you would expect. On this game the maker's page prints one ceiling, its own announcement prints a higher one, and the game itself prints neither, so a reader who starts at a listing site never learns that there is a question.

When that happens the page prints both and names who said what. The game page prints a ceiling of 160 times the bet while the announcement published the same day prints 165, so the page names which document said which number instead of averaging them. A maker can redraw a screen without saying so, which is why every figure carries the date it was checked.

What Is Checked Before a Page Goes Live?

Regulation is verified against a register instead of a logo, and on this game the register answers properly. The licensing authority publishes a downloadable file of 1,343 entries, and the supplier is in it under a licence number of its own, with the maker's own domain recorded beside it; the seal in its footer leads to the authority's validator rather than to that register. The register also dates that licence, which is why every page here prints the date we read it beside the number.

Our testing method page describes each step in order. Third-party catalogues are read for context only, while competitor review sites stay out of the citation list entirely.

Which Sources Count, and Which Do Not?

The studio provides the demo client, and its rules screen carries the mechanics these pages describe: five outcomes, four durability values and every block payout. What that screen never carries is a return or a ceiling, so those are cited to the maker's pages instead and named as such.

Regulators supply the other half of the record here, and the useful question is which of them publish anything at all. A downloadable supplier register answers in minutes; a list of authorised operators answers a different question entirely; a market with neither leaves nothing to quote.

The gaps belong to the record, not to the reporting. No laboratory certificate names this title, no screen in the game states a return, and the maker's two public surfaces disagree about the ceiling. You will find each of those problems printed wherever it matters to you.

3 Sources, Opened in Order

The complete list of steps is short. Our methodology lives on a page of its own: a game verdict rests on 5 criteria, and no casino is graded here at all, because no casino dossier was built; to verify a figure, we open the rules screen, the game page the maker publishes and the regulator register, in that order.

Readers get the result with their own route back to it. Every figure names the document it came from, so they can repeat the check for themselves, and you can hold a page to the standard it sets.

That standard carries one limitation worth stating out loud. A screen read last week can be redrawn this week, so you should treat the date beside a figure as part of the fact.

How This Service Earns Its Money

Money reaches this service in one way only. Some outbound links are affiliate links, and a reader who registers or deposits through one may pay this site a commission at no cost to themselves.

Commissions leave a rating, a verdict or the running order untouched, since operators are ranked nowhere on Falling Pickaxe at all. Compared to a paid placement, that is a dull business model, and no payment buys a line on this site. The terms of use repeat this disclosure, and it sits beside the sponsored button wherever one appears.

No operator or game studio pays for coverage, reads the text before publication or supplies their own screenshots. They see a finished page at the same moment you see it, and the published version is the only preview on offer. Frames come from the recorded demo session, and the studio has no say over a single caption.

Independence and Corrections on These Pages

Independence on these pages rests on 2 rules. Both are short enough to be held to, and both of them hold. A page is never edited at an operator request, and a correction is accepted only with a source a reader can open for themselves.

If you spot an error, send a correction; your correction lands on the page and moves its update date, so the history of a fact stays visible for you and for everyone after you. However, where sources disagree, the page prints both figures and says which one the studio stands behind, because an averaged number is a made-up number.

Terms Used Across These Pages

Return to player

The share of all stakes a game hands back across a modelled long run, published for this title as one figure of 95% and printed on no screen inside the game.

Affiliate link

An outbound link that pays this site a commission when a reader registers, disclosed beside every sponsored button.

Licence register

The public list a regulator keeps, where a licence number can be looked up on the day a page is written.

Not confirmed

The wording used whenever no provider page, operator term or regulator entry states the figure a reader asked about.

Player Safety on These Pages

Safety comes first. Player safety outranks every other rule on this site, and it binds every page here. Every page is written for adults aged 18 or over, and an instant returns less over time than it collects.

The responsible gambling page lists the limits a licensed account lets you set, the warning signs worth acting on, and how self-exclusion works at a single operator, plus what is left when no shared scheme covers a market. It prints a helpline only where we have read it in a primary source, and it says which checks stand behind each one.

Predictor and hack pages stay off Falling Pickaxe, because nothing in the client exposes a pattern to predict: the seed stays inside the server's reply, and the only randomisation line in the client belongs to the shared engine string table rather than to this game. The privacy policy explains that this service keeps no reader accounts and sets 0 cookies of its own.

Does a Commission Ever Change a Verdict?

No commission has ever moved a verdict here, and the structure makes it awkward to try: operators are never ranked, so there is no running order for money to buy.

A reader who doubts that can test it cheaply. Read the disclosure beside the sponsored button, then compare its wording with the criticism printed in the same section.

Recap: How These Pages Stay Honest

To recap the promise: these pages publish one game, name their sources, check a supplier against a register where one exists, and earn money through disclosed affiliate links that move no score. If you want one sentence, every figure here names the screen it came from, and the screens disagree more often than a catalogue admits. That is the rule. Player safety and the age rule sit above all of it.

The weak spots in the record stay visible as well. The maker contradicts its own ceiling, no laboratory certificate covers the title, and no hit rate is published for it at all, so each of those is printed where it belongs. Read how we test it next, then the author profile.