Browser based games that don't require commitment or much attention
December 19, 2022 4:59 PM   Subscribe

Help! I need some browser-based games to play when I'm trying to kill time. I have a bunch of criteria inside the thread.

Sometimes in the evenings I sit around, surf the web, watch the shit show on Twitter, and play chess on chess.com. Sometimes there will be a sports thing on TV when I do this. Sometimes other stuff is going on.

I like playing chess because it doesn't take long (I play ten minute games), I can pay attention to other stuff (including stuff in other browser tabs) while I'm playing, and it's easy to play and basically requires no effort on my part to click "new game." Losing has no great impact on anything.

I'm so tired of playing chess though.

I need a game that:
  • Is browser-based. I'm not going to install anything, even that thing that you say has a small footprint and is super easy to install. If it doesn't work natively in Safari, I'm not gonna play it.
  • I can find plenty of phone games. I want a game to play on a browser on a computer. I like a big screen and a keyboard.
  • Doesn't take any commitment. I can walk away at any time and won't lose months or even hours of progress. It's fine if I can walk away and progress stays where it is.
  • Doesn't require my full attention. It doesn't need to be turn-based, but I don't want to have to constantly be aware of what's going on because if I blink some alien will zap me or whatever.
  • I realize that free games need to be supported by ads, but I'd prefer it if it wasn't one of those pages where you are just inundated with ads and fake "PLAY NOW" buttons that pop up even more ads.
  • Isn't super hard or frustrating. Improvement would occur with repeated playing.
I guess something like a crossword puzzle would check off a lot of boxes, but maybe not a crossword puzzle. But, you know, not necessarily NOT a crossword puzzle.

Almost anything is fine. Board game, idle game, puzzle game, whatever.

In the past I've liked things like 2048 and there used to be this flash-based BMX game where you would just have two minutes to ride around and do tricks. I can no longer find that, unfortunately.

Basically I'm bored and want to amuse myself. What do YOU do?
posted by bondcliff to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (33 answers total) 56 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Kittens Game (previously on MetaFilter).
posted by lookoutbelow at 5:04 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]


Best answer: The original Prince of Persia, entirely in Javascript
posted by jozxyqk at 5:12 PM on December 19, 2022


Best answer: I'm hooked on Conceptis Puzzles. I like Pic-a-Pix and Fill-a-Pix. I do them while watching TV.
posted by elmay at 5:15 PM on December 19, 2022


Best answer: Can't believe I'm logging in to Metafilter to tell a human being whose contributions to the world I value that they should play Cookie Clicker
posted by Jofus at 5:20 PM on December 19, 2022 [14 favorites]


Best answer: Here are some idle/incremental games I'm currently messing with aside from the one I recently posted to the blue which is kind of being developed on the fly/sometimes broken:

(the aforementioned kittens game)
Algebraic Progression
Idlemancery
Synergism
More Ore

Some others I'm not currently playing but finished (i.e. unlike possibly the ones above, these do have concrete ends):
Communitree
Wigmaker
posted by juv3nal at 5:23 PM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]


Best answer: Oh I guess I should throw some other classics in if Cookie Clicker is fair game:
Skynet Simulator
Universal Paperclips
posted by juv3nal at 5:34 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]


Best answer: I've been a big fan of Antgame.io since it featured on MeFi a few months ago. Just the right combination of strategy and luck, the games are short but interesting to watch unfold, and you can leave it running in the background (and watch it catch up at high speed when you switch back).
posted by Rhaomi at 5:57 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Since you like 2048, you might like Twenty, which is sorta similar. (It has a phone version, too, which is a little better but I like the browser version just fine.)

Square Stacker is kinda mindless but pretty fun!
posted by Charity Garfein at 5:58 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I play a bunch of pretty easy online crossword games that fill this need for me. Here are a few:

Daily Beast
Your Puzzle Source
Washington Post (actually LA Times)
Vox
Universal Crossword
Atlantic

Banging through these (none take more than like 5 minutes or so) throughout the day does tend to break up the tedium.

Some other Wordle-esque games I play daily include
Globle
Waffle
Squardle (my personal favorite)
posted by General Malaise at 6:16 PM on December 19, 2022 [4 favorites]


Best answer: Can I put in a plug for my game, Spellbound? I posted it in projects in the spring and got some nice comments from people.

It’s a word game. Free, no ads, play it in any browser.
posted by AMyNameIs at 6:17 PM on December 19, 2022 [11 favorites]


Best answer: nonograms
posted by oceano at 6:18 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Can't believe I'm logging in to Metafilter to tell a human being whose contributions to the world I value that they should play Cookie Clicker

I had a four day obsession with that a couple weeks ago. I even did that thing where I disabled sleep mode so it would earn while I was away, and then one day I just closed the tab and will maybe do the same thing in a year or two.

Maybe something a bit more involved than the standard idle game. I really liked Factory Idle, because there was a bit of a puzzle feel to it in addition to just "earn stuff so you can buy increasingly expensive things to help you earn more stuff so you can buy increasingly expensive things to..."
posted by bondcliff at 6:43 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Have you heard of GameSnacks? It has a ton of different options, they're all free, there aren't any ads and it's great. I use it to kill time or do something when I'm listening to a podcast.
posted by Carillon at 7:26 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Solitaire? Or FreeCell, or one of the various other solitaire card games at that site.
posted by MadamM at 7:31 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: My partner is the king of these games. They’re currently playing Poppyseed Pets (which I made a FP about a while back), Voidpets, Flight Rising, and Lorwolf. Voidpets would probably be the most like what you’re looking for, from what I’ve seen (and is the game they default to the most while doing other things).
posted by brook horse at 8:22 PM on December 19, 2022


Best answer: chisel game
posted by aniola at 8:23 PM on December 19, 2022


Best answer: Oh, wait. This is because you're tired of playing chess? Go.
posted by aniola at 8:31 PM on December 19, 2022


Best answer: If you're interested in something somewhat crossword-like, you might enjoy variant sudoku. (There are a number of mathy variations on sudoku that have fun logical possibilities after you have more or less mastered the logic of the classic sudoku you see in newspapers).

Logic Masters Germany publishes quite a good number of cool sudoku, from the fairly easy to the mind-bendingly difficult. No ads, which is nice.
posted by Jeanne at 9:13 PM on December 19, 2022


Best answer: Google [map quiz], play a few obsessively, learn where Nauru and Uzbekistan are, then win every day's Worldle and Globle games.
posted by amtho at 11:11 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Hint: you'll have to hunt a bit to find the quizzes with Oceania, but that knowledge will put you over the top.

Also discovered: the Google results for [python quiz], although I don't trust all of them.
posted by amtho at 11:12 PM on December 19, 2022


Best answer: This is what I use Sporcle for. Geography, trivia, Dad jokes, music identification, logic problems, word games on pretty much every conceivable topic. I'm not doing it justice. Go explore.
posted by Athanassiel at 3:27 AM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: duotrigordle and quordle both have practice functionality, so work as idle games
posted by freethefeet at 3:31 AM on December 20, 2022


Best answer: If you liked factory idle, and want more complex, unfortunately you're looking at installing games.

I can't recommend mindustry enough as being the fun game that genuinely adds challenge to factory building, unlike Factorio/copycats which really have no intelligent opposing force / restrictions.
posted by bbqturtle at 4:22 AM on December 20, 2022


Best answer: Everything on Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection - There is a variety of this type of game, and each game has some customizability (I like Solo (Sudoku) in "3x3 Killer").

Also Oh No and Oh Hi
posted by BekahVee at 5:18 AM on December 20, 2022 [2 favorites]


AMyNameIs: Can I put in a plug for my game, Spellbound? I posted it in projects in the spring and got some nice comments from people.

OH MY GOODNESS YES YOU CAN

Your game is so awesome -- thank you for it!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:39 AM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I use Puzzle Baron's puzzle games to kill time. Most of them have some sort of leaderboard competition against other players, but if you can ignore that, they're fine.
posted by telophase at 10:54 AM on December 20, 2022


Best answer: N-blox.com is a fun browser based Tetris game.
posted by ygmiaa at 3:15 PM on December 20, 2022


Wenestvedt, thank you so much for your comment. You made my day.

And to the 30-odd Mefites who have tried the game over the past 2 days: You are all The Best.

Note: No, I am not stalking. When you select a link posted on this site, it passes a referrer to the server, and I get a count. I also see more or less (it’s sometimes way, way off) what city, state/province/region, and country people are playing in. Mefites are all over the world. Thank you all.
posted by AMyNameIs at 5:22 PM on December 20, 2022 [4 favorites]


AMyNameIs, I am in bed and should be sleeping but I am still playing your game. SO GOOD
posted by wenestvedt at 8:17 PM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]


AMyNameIs another "I should be asleep but I'm playing" - but is it possible to add a dark mode? This would make a good option for late night baby feeds. :)
posted by freethefeet at 4:12 AM on December 21, 2022 [2 favorites]


Freethefeet, I never thought about that. No promises, but I will look into it.

The last feature I added was to let you change the accent color. I’d been using green for a few years and thought of changing it. I couldn’t decide what to change it to, so I made it user configurable. Sometimes I just play around with that when I’m trying to come up with a word.
posted by AMyNameIs at 4:37 AM on December 21, 2022 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Backpack Hero is a stand alone game now, but you can still play a super fun version in the browser
posted by dgr8bob at 11:53 AM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]


Cookie Clicker should keep you going for a while....
posted by kenchie at 1:26 PM on December 23, 2022


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