Sometimes I need a quick break like 5 minutes on a game, or a walk outside.<p>What games do you play to pass the time while waiting for code to compile / graphics rendering?<p>I'm trying to find nice quick pick-up-and-play games similar to Stardew Valley / Screeps / Factorio.<p>What does HN play?
I had a friend that used to take mid-day breaks to play CS:GO.<p>The weird part is that it seemed to work wonders, I guess there's something about getting shot at that really gets your energy levels going
Quick minute or two: Wordle (Or a copy of it, that I can play more than one game a day)<p>On-Going in the background: Old School Runescape - I have 3 monitors, so I keep it on half of one while I work. There are many activities that are a "grind" and are pretty AFK, so it's just a click every few minutes or so.
Give Rimworld a try. It's easy to get a few things done every break and pausing fits in naturally. You can even almost get away with backgrounding it where you set up a bunch of stuff to be done, and let the pawns do their own thing.
Based on the games you listed, I think you’d enjoy <a href="https://shapez.io" rel="nofollow">https://shapez.io</a><p>It’s essentially minimalist Factorio with a lot of neat ideas of its own. You can play it in your browser or on Steam.<p>Another classic browser game is TagPro. 3v3 physics-based capture the flag with a surprisingly high skill ceiling. <a href="https://tagpro.gg" rel="nofollow">https://tagpro.gg</a>
Mindustry. It's like Factorio + tower defense. There is a basic campaign and sandbox mode with multiplayer as well. It has in-game visual programming (logic) with which you can do crazy things like play Chess: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoeS3S9S9Dk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoeS3S9S9Dk</a>, and it also has a JavaScript API for mods.
<a href="https://play-cs.com/en/servers" rel="nofollow">https://play-cs.com/en/servers</a><p>Been quite surprised to find fully functional CS 1.6 in a browser, but that's it. Heard that the latency is worse compared to the game client, haven't checked that myself because I don't want to bother buying or pirating the original version. Main use case: playing at work when you can't install random binaries but can visit websites (this use case isn't mine but I've been asking players there and they responded in this way).
I've got a couple Teenage Engineering Pocket Operators laying around and from time to time I play with them. Also I love simple online games like ISS Docking Sim, 3D Bosconian or ASCIIcker.
<a href="https://iss-sim.spacex.com/" rel="nofollow">https://iss-sim.spacex.com/</a>
<a href="http://nolannicholson.com/bosco-3d/" rel="nofollow">http://nolannicholson.com/bosco-3d/</a>
<a href="http://asciicker.com/y6/" rel="nofollow">http://asciicker.com/y6/</a>
Seedship us fun and works offline too so good for planes/trains etc. <a href="https://johnayliff.itch.io/seedship" rel="nofollow">https://johnayliff.itch.io/seedship</a>
Noita. Brutalist one-shot game with very creative and emergant gameplay. Games can last from 5 seconds to 7 hours, and you can save and exit at any point.
I like to play something that makes me feel like I did something, so I lean on games like Halo where I can play a match. My favorite games are role playing games, but I reserve those for vacations and breaks because I don't feel like I can get anything meaningfully done in about 10 minutes.
Usually some singleplayer FPS with (practically) zero pauses for cutscenes/story/etc with quicksave+quickload so i can run it, play for 5 minutes, save, exit and pick it up at any time without having to wonder where i am or what is going on with the story. Pretty much always this is games i've already played at the past at least once. Recently it is Unreal 1 or Doom 3.<p>Also whenever i listen to some podcast (or video with just people talking) i like to boot up such a game (i often play Doom 3 BFG Edition since it supports gamepad and i can relax on my chair instead of hunching over the keyboard and mouse - i also use RBDoom3 sourceport which allows skipping cutscenes, etc and works natively on Linux) with the game's audio volume to barely audible.
I played some Warband: Mount & Blade recently. I think many tasks in this game can be done in-between real-life stuff.<p>But last weekend I also bought Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos on GOG. And I think if you can control yourself, you can also play short times in-between real-life tasks.<p>The pixel art looks really good and I like how Westwood added specific graphics and animations to support parts of the story. The music adds a nice atmosphere and voice acting is pretty good to great (Patrick Stewart does part of the voice acting).<p>A review here: <a href="https://retrofreakreviews.com/2020/06/12/lands-of-lore-the-throne-of-chaos-review/" rel="nofollow">https://retrofreakreviews.com/2020/06/12/lands-of-lore-the-t...</a>
I play a couple of games of bullet chess (1 minute games) on Lichess app. From a locked phone to the start of a game is 11.5 seconds (yeah, timed it). After a game you can start a new one in a few seconds.
What do I play? My guitar.<p>Yep. WFH. I have a 6 string guitar next to me at all times. I'm not a terribly great player but I enjoy it and it relaxes me and gets some creative juices going. It's wonderful :)
Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike on Fightcade.<p>App loads instantly unlike most modern games, and if you're in the US, you can quickly find a match. You can challenge anyone in chat room to a quick first-to-3 or first-to-5 which will take 5-10 minutes. It's a great adrenaline rush that totally takes my mind off coding b/c it's so fast paced and PvP. Then back to work.<p>Easy to get into for beginners, but the mechanics are incredibly deep and people have been mapping the engine out for 20 years, so there is so much to learn if you choose to.
I tend to avoid video games until I'm on proper vacation time. For diversion between programming boring stuff I tend to do some graphic design stuff or occasionally I'll go on StackOverflow and answer some Perl/JavaScript questions.<p>During vacation time I'll typically play one of the Fire Emblems or Halo (3, Reach or Infinite).<p>Last vacation I quite enjoyed Dirt Rally, nothing quite like nailing a stage at speed in Lancia 037. I don't care for driving games usually but these games are fun even just on a gamepad.
I play a game called "where's my lighter" where I've lost my lighter and none of the sleeping pets will get off my lap while I try to escape. Its frustrating but rewarding.
For something really quick and just in the browser I jump into a round on <a href="https://krunker.io/" rel="nofollow">https://krunker.io/</a>
I play Wild Rift (<a href="https://wildrift.leagueoflegends.com" rel="nofollow">https://wildrift.leagueoflegends.com</a>) or Chess on iPad.
If you have VR, beat sabre.<p>Sometimes I'll take a stab at Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy or play a few rounds rounds of NES Tetris.<p>Weather permitting I'll prefer going outside.
gurk, cute little 8-bit rpg for android<p><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.larvalabs.gurk3&hl=en_US&gl=US" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.larvalabs....</a>
on my windows/linux machines, Overwatch rounds are nice and short.<p>on my mac? mame, with certain roms and savestates. can't beat the combination of the simplicity of the old classics plus the ability to freeze and duplicate state at any point.
Steam games with decent replay value, but short rounds of gameplay:<p>One Finger Death Punch<p>One Finger Death Punch 2<p>Downwell<p>Superflight<p>Shattered<p>Race the Sun<p>Super Crate Box