YouTube Playables: how to play games like Chess and Solitaire

Britons spend countless hours watching pranksters and hobbyists on YouTube, but now there’s another way to procrastinate on the service.

Between binge-watching Mr Beast’s viral stunts and MKBHD’s gadget reviews, you can play video games on Google’s massive repository of user-made clips.

They’re called YouTube Playables and include around 75 titles from tried-and-true classics such as Chess and Solitaire to mobile hits including Angry Birds.

Here’s how you can start gaming on YouTube today.

How to play YouTube Playables

You can find the games on YouTube’s mobile apps and website via the ‘explore’ section.

Start by opening YouTube on either iPhone or Android, then scroll down and you’ll see a row of topics appear at the top of the screen. Now, tap the compass icon at the far left to open the explore sidebar and select ‘playables’ at the bottom of the list.

Here, you can view and play a selection of the most popular games or see the full list by selecting ‘browse.’

If you don’t see the Playables option, you may need to update the YouTube app first.

On the web, you can find the games by clicking the menu icon next to the YouTube logo at the top of the screen (which looks like three stacked lines), and then scrolling down until you see Playables.

Once you’ve chosen a game, it should take only seconds to load. Then you can use either touchscreen controls on mobile or your mouse or trackpad on computers to play.

What games are there?

More than 75 playable games are on YouTube, from arcade titles to puzzle games and endless runners. They include:

• Angry Birds Showdown (test your slingshot skills in this bird-flinging frenzy)

• Basketball FRVR: Dunk Shoot (rack up points by sinking hoops)

• Color Burst 3D (a puzzle game where you match colored balls)

• Cut the Rope (feed candy to an adorable monster by cutting ropes)

• Tomb of the Mask (explore an ancient tomb and collect jewels)

• DOP 4: Draw One Part (solve puzzles by adding a missing element to a drawing)

• Words of Wonders (find hidden words within a grid of letters)

• Trivia Crack (test your knowledge on a variety of topics)

• Solitaire: Daily One (play the classic card game).

What are YouTube Playables?

YouTube Playables are casual games meant to be played in short bursts. You don’t need to download individual titles to your phone or laptop (unlike games on Netflix) or install any software.

That’s because they’re built using standard web languages, like HTML5, which web browsers like Chrome understand and use to display the content you see on a website. This also allows the games to run across different devices and operating systems such as Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.

Google began testing the games on YouTube last summer. Some of these were the fruits of another Google gaming project known as GameSnacks, a dedicated site for fast-loading online games.