Seeking a video game as a fidget

January 26, 2021 10:24 AM

Over the last few years one of my productivity tools has been Hearthstone. I can start a game while doing busywork and alternate between the two, because of two qualities it has: one, there's no narrative or overarching need to pay attention, and two, you're obligated to wait between your turns because you can't do anything on your opponent's turn. So it's very nice as a fidget - I can do a few busywork things, play my turn, and jump back to busywork. Are there any other games like this?
posted by LSK to Grab Bag (12 answers total)

Slay the Spire is very good, and turn based.
posted by axiom at 10:33 AM on January 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

Best answer: People talk about Clash of Clans for this, but I don't think that game is very fun. Too much pay to win.

Clash Royale is a good game, you can play with 1 hand in portrait mode, and games are short (3 minutes or so) and you only need to DO anything every few seconds. It's not really turn based though. Pretty great. Not much pay to win.

Brawl Stars is good, 2 minute games, but does require constant attention when existing. Not much pay to win.

Polytopia is a common suggestion online for the best online game without microtransactions, but it lacked the addictive quality for me.

Egg, Inc, is a well-done incremental game, pretty fun, and you definitely don't need to look at it much. It's not multiplayer though.

#ymbab is fun, though frustrating at times. Definitely fits your agenda.

Warbits and Lost Frontier are advance wars knockoffs that are both pretty good.

Mindustry is factorio-lite for phones. Super fun.

Since mobile games are so cheap in the grand scheme of life, try a bunch and report back your favorites!
posted by bbqturtle at 10:34 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

For multiplayer, Star Realms has a similar flow and doesn't have much to track between turns.

On preview, seconding Slay the Spire.

Assuming this is for an iPad, Grindstone on Apple Arcade was enjoyable and not real-time.
posted by Anonymous Function at 10:35 AM on January 26, 2021

I use Idle/incremental games on my phone for this. There are actually a lot of good idle games these days with interesting things to periodically fiddle with that aren't microtransaction heavy. Egg Inc was one of my least favorite idle games as it was pretty boring and very much wants you to pay money. Random list of ones that I recently liked: Idle Skilling, Idle Slayer, Exponential Idle, Soda Dungeon, Antimatter Dimensions, Cell to Singularity. Several of those have web versions as well
posted by JZig at 10:44 AM on January 26, 2021

Into the Breach was the first game that came to my mind.
posted by cali59 at 10:45 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

I've been playing the shark game (incremental, and I found it on metafilter!) Click around a bit, wait for resources to grow while you're not playing, click around some more.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 10:51 AM on January 26, 2021

I've been using Incremancer (previously) in the way you describe. Not multiplayer but can run unattended.
posted by Ashwagandha at 12:03 PM on January 26, 2021

Another incremental/clicker that has been on the blue a few times: kittensgame.

Edit: Also, I've wasted probably a few thousand hours playing/not playing and watching/waiting, so there is that.
posted by Snowishberlin at 2:11 PM on January 26, 2021

Not sure if it's the kind of game you're looking for, but Neko Atsume involves putting out food or toys for cats, and then checking in again a few minutes later to see if any cats have arrived/left/finished all the food/left you gifts or fish as thanks.
posted by trig at 2:11 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Have you tried Slay the Spire? It on pretty much any platform out there
posted by rtimmel at 6:32 PM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

re: slay the spire, it is worth exploring a bit what characteristics might make this game a decent fit:

* it is a roguelike where each run is a short session from a few minutes (if you die early) to an hour or two (if you win the run, depending on how fast you play)
* it is single player and turn-based, you can step away from the computer at any time
* the game is respectful of player time. you don't need to sink in 400 hours of grind or fork out $40 in microtransactions before you unlock the real game. there's some degree of meta progression where more content is unlocked if you play a few times.
* there's a board-game-like aspect to it, in that nearly all decisions you make are interesting
* the UI is great at communicating game state. You're playing a deck of cards: the UI shows you what cards are in your draw pile, what are in your hand, what are in your discard pile. There's no need to remember any of this if you step away between turns, you can refer to it in the UI.

I've been playing a lot of Monster Train recently. It has many of the same characteristics as Slay the Spire. If Slay the Spire is humane & fun mix of short session roguelike + deckbuilder, Monster Train is humane & fun mix of short session tower defence & deckbuilder.
posted by are-coral-made at 10:40 PM on January 26, 2021

I bought slay the spire based on this thread and can handily recommend it. It's not multiplayer, but it's really, really fun.

Doesn't look like monster train is on mobile yet.
posted by bbqturtle at 1:28 PM on January 27, 2021