I have a few games that I am playing at the moment, but a lot of them require at least some time commitment once you start a round. I’d like something that I can start now and maybe finish later. Something on the line of Solitaire or https://mergetin.com/ .
Any turn-based strategy game could be good - you can stop playing Civilization any time you want, right? There’s no need to go one more turn
There’s no need to go one more turn
Good point. I’ll take a break after the next turn.
just one more turn and my grand strategy will be complete, wait actually one more turn, but wait there is that resource I need to get before I forget next time I boot up, oh but wait this construction finishes next turn and I need to optimize this city so lets just do one more turn, oh hello there sun.
On this note The Battle of Polytopia is an extremely fast-paced turn-based strategy game, like a Civ-lite you can finish entirely in 30 turns or less instead of 200-500 :)
Edit: Recommending Worldbox too lol it’s a fun god-game you can leave and come back to whenever, just save your world’s progress in the meantime.
Not so much a game recommendation but a platform, but if you don’t already have a Nintendo switch, it might suit your style.
It lets you suspend any game at whatever point by just going to the Home Screen. You can then put down the switch and leave it for days or even weeks at a time, and then you can just turn the switch back on and pick up exactly where you left off in like 5 seconds.
I’ve been playing heaps of the new Zelda game, whenever I get a spare moment, but also if Nintendo games aren’t your style, nowadays there’s quite a good library of other games for the switch now.
Obviously the suspend feature doesn’t work for multiplayer games though, and to be honest I’ve found multiplayer in general doesn’t work as well on switch as other platforms, but it really is great for quick sessions of single-player games.
Also being portable is a great bonus
Don’t even have to go to the home screen! You can just press the power button or long press the home button to access the Sleep option in the quick menu. When you resume, it will default to resuming in the game rather resuming to the home screen!
Getting my TotK on with this right now despite being busy
Now I am thinking about how insane it would be for MP gamers when someone puts the game on hold for an indiscriminate amount of time.
Steam deck can do this too. Again had the same issue with multiplayer games
Man I’d love a steam deck but not available in my country haha
Slay the Spire comes to mind.
Absolutely. I’ve recommended it several times here on Lemmy in various best game/most played game type threads. I honestly cannot recommend Slay the Spire enough. It is an extremely easy game to learn (but like all the best games) tricky to master. Because of its Roguelike(ish) nature, it is infinitely re-playable with each run having a different feel.
I always see people recommend Stardew Valley in these threads.
I just restarted the game again recently. The problem with it is that it’s very difficult to put down.
I have Trackmania Stadium for that. Going into a full speed server (Only need to steer left or right while constantly press forward) and put some music up.
The flow of the race tracks together with the music is very nice and because no speed control is needed, no need to get into the physics and tracks to enjoy the game.
I can recommend to get into Trackmania when you have more time, the feeling of mastering a hard track is marvellous, but just speeding around is also fun as hell.
Simon Tatham’s Puzzles is an amazing collection of little puzzle games. There a ports for both Android and iOS available as well.
I’ve been playing them for about 15 years and counting. Not planning to stop anytime soon either.
Mechabellum.
Very easy to pick up auto-battler. Short matches, but quite a lot of tactical depth.Into the Breach would work. You can turn off the game at any point and come back to it, thanks to it saving after every turn. Plays a lot like chess, with different abilities and enemy types to keep things interesting. Highly recommend!
Wholeheartedly agree. Bought it on PC and played for countless hours. Later bought it again on Switch, played even more. Recently picked it up again, as fun as ever!
Also incidentally comes as a phone app with your Netflix subscription!
Counter Strike Surfing. Doesn’t really matter whether you play for 10 minutes or 2 hours :)
I really enjoyed Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon. It’s on PC and consoles, but if you have Netflix on your phone you can play it there as well.
There’s a little game called Dorfromantik in which you build a map with tiles. The PC version is my go to game when I need to multitask (made long Teams meetings during covid bearable). It’s very simple, yet I have like 150h put into it. Not even that expensive to buy.
There’s also a board game version which apparently ok too.
I’ll second the recommendation of Dorfromantik, and I’ll also add Islanders, which has a similar vibe but different visuals and gameplay.
In both cases, you’re given pieces that need to be placed on the map in order to score points, and that’s the extent of a round, which makes it very easy to play for a couple of minutes, then put it down until later.
Minecraft java version for mod support. If vanilla doesn’t hit there are thousands of mods and modpacks to choose from for very different experience
I’ll second this, especially if you don’t mind ‘cheating’.
I’ve got a Java world set up with cheats turned on, so that if I need to stop, I can make a note of my current location and teleport back to my base. When I next play, I just teleport back.
The downside is the temptation to just teleport everywhere instead of managing your resources, or to use the other cheats.
I’ll throw out Bad North. It’s a little strategy game that features scenarios that last 4-5 minutes at most.
Brotato. Ridiculously addictive auto shooter with one minute waves. I play it in my downtime at work. There are interruptions with zero warning and it’s always easy to come back to later.
