If I can finish the game the first or second time I play it, I tend to rate it as easy but sometimes when trying to improve my score I take other paths and have difficulty finishing it (especiallyif I've left it for a few days) and I then think perhaps it should be rated as medium. Do you re-rate games? Do you decide a game is hard by the number of alternatives in the game or some other way?

To be honest ... any more ... if I lose sleep over a game I would rate it Medium ... that meaning that I restarted the game so many times that I never posted a score on it until late in the evening or something to that effect. If I just flat have trouble with the game no matter which way I turn and end up having to post a time that I really don't see any other way I could get it better ... then ... well ... I would rate it Hard. All that to say ... I don't remember what I rated #9 ... but that is a very difficult game for me to play for some reason ... among a few others. I know rating of games isn't a rocket science by any means ... so normally if I finish the game within the first couple of times and I know that I can finish the game and do it faster ... I rate it easy right off the bat. Hmm ... I guess this makes sense ... so I am going to hit this little Post Reply button now ... lol.

If I finish under 3 minutes and first try it's easy to me.
But I know that I've rated things medium when the rest say easy.
And I also have noticed that what was medium before is easy now. Too much time here maybe?

If it's straightforward & plays itself out, it's easy. If there's one or two tricks that have to be done to get it finished, it's medium. If I'm beating my head againts the desk trying to work out what to do & none of the hints work it's hard!

@saam said exactly what I was thinking. With an easy game you can typically move every card the moment they are playable. Medium games require a bit more caution, there is typically a card or two that shouldn't be moved. Hard games seem to be those that have lots of tricky moves and usually the very first move is the one that gets you into trouble (or you need to wait for the next king, not the first king you come across).

Third those thoughts. I usually quickly skim the comments before I start a game, if there are comments that contain hints about moving certain cards first I don't memorize the hints, and start to play the game. If I make it through on the first or second it's easy. If I have to look at the comments for hints to memorize and I make it through in 2 or 3 tries, it's medium. If it takes more than a few select moves and I take 4 or more times to solve its hard.