The gizmo feed

As magical as Pocket’s game-creation process feels, the limited way Pocket lets you share those games with the world feels the opposite. The only way to let other people experience your Pocket creation is by sharing it as a Post, pairing your little interactive gizmo with a small caption and a cover photo.

You can share a link to that post anywhere you’d usually share links online, and those following the link can even play an HTML5 “preview” version of your gizmo in their browser without having to download the Pocket app. This can even work on desktop browsers, as long as your app doesn’t rely on mobile-focused inputs like multitouch or tilt-sensing.

The main method for people to discover your gizmos, though, is Pocket’s algorithmic feed, which lets you swipe through the full spectrum of Pocket creations in a semi-randomized endless scroll. Skimming through this feed provides the kind of Skinner box roulette that’s familiar to any social media user—a mix of lowest-common-denominator fluff, nonsensical inside jokes from pre-teens, and the occasional well-executed quality idea.

Swiping through a selection of Pocket gizmos just now, I went from an interesting pinball/Breakout hybrid to a confusing ersatz WhatsApp-styled bot conversation to a bare-bones, badly implemented Flappy Bird clone to a gizmo that does nothing but make a low-poly, ice-blue seal flop around when I tap the screen (below a giant banner declaring “Seal!”).

You can follow favorite creators or curators who repost quality gizmos to separate the wheat from the chaff a bit. But even the best Pocket gizmos don’t seem designed to be played for more than a minute or two. Like TikTok, the easy ability to instantly swipe to something new rewards flashy, quick-hit content that can grab a user in just a few seconds, rather than deep, long-lasting experiences. I’ve also seen multiple gizmos reappear on my feed during just an hour or so of idle scrolling, which suggests Pocket also currently has a problem with gizmo quantity on top of inconsistent quality.