Grind or skill: which does your favourite game reward?

Two mobile games can look identical on the surface and be completely different underneath. One rewards you for getting better. The other rewards you for playing longer. Learning to tell them apart saved me a lot of wasted evenings.

The test I use is simple. When you fail a level, ask yourself: could a smarter play have won it? If yes, the game respects skill. If the honest answer is you needed stronger units or a higher level, that's a grind wall dressed up as difficulty.

Neither is automatically bad. Some grind gives structure and a sense of steady progress, and that's fine if it's what you want. The problem is when a game hides a grind wall behind fake difficulty and hopes you won't notice.

Tower defence and turn-based strategy usually lean skill-first, which is part of why I gravitate to them. When you win, it feels earned. When you lose, you know exactly what you'd do differently next time.