Let's say you have 30 minutes to kill at your PC and don't want to do anything too intense. Maybe you are on a conference call or you might get pulled away or something. What is your go-to game?
I'm looking for something new to me to try out. Slay the Spire has been filling this role for me for a while now but I am ready for something else. In the past tower defense games have been good for this, or puzzle games like Picross, or slower paced RTSes.
Open world racers like Burnout Paradise, ARPGs like Diablo or Titan Quest, even things like Peggle 2 are all good ways to kill a little bit of time.
Tie between Risk of Rain and FTL.
Some of the top ones for me are
Mini Metro
Race the Sun
Train Vally
Slay the Spire
Borderlands 2, Diablo 3, and Grim Dawn are high on the time wasting pedestal for me. Mindless loot games where I can have something else going on (podcast or a video).
I have bounced around with the Guild of Dungeoneering and it's pretty great for this. You Must Build A Boat, 10,000,000 and Ironcast are good short-time puzzlers too.
868-HACK, Slay The Spire, and MtG: Arena are my go-to games to play while half-listening to a teleconference.
Spelunky for sure. Used to be Tropico 4, but I think I'm all Tropico'd out these days. Wargoove is becoming a bit like this for me these days too.
Failing that, pretty much any classic NES/SNES game is perfect for this.
Another vote for Slay The Spire!
I've really gotten into Oxygen Not Included lately. It has a bit of a learning curve so you need to be willing to do a little up front wiki research or just be okay with trashing your first few inefficient colonies.
FTL
Orcs Must Die!
I all but platinumed Diablo 3 while sitting in a telco.
My go to low stakes, hop in hop out time killer right now is Gems of War. It's on pretty much every platform, including mobile. It's from some of the makers of the Puzzle Quest games, and follows closely in its "match-3" footsteps. However, it has adopted a F2P model with tons of microtransactions, but they only serve to slightly accelerate your progress and are by no means essential to ones enjoyment.
I know it's not necessarily as satisfying or interesting as a game like Slay the Spire, but I like to mindlessly match gems for a few minutes every now and then, and it becomes somewhat rewarding when there are always long term goals to grind for.
I'm not including MMOs because that's almost cheating.
XCOM2 - One mission only
FTL
Diablo 3
Borderlands - FPS with no gravitas or commitment
Stellaris (just make sure 30 minutes doesn't turn into 3 hours
and my current fave, The Yawhg - the game is ok but you can play a whole choose your own adventure story in 15 minutes.
XCOM2 is a good call. The Tactical Legacy Pack missions are even shorter.
For me is smaller strategy/card games (FTL, Into the Breach, Slay the Spire, Darkest Dungeon, etc) or puzzle games like Hexcells or Picross.
Thanks for all of the responses! Yeah Slay the Spire is a perfect game for this but after 130 hours I am looking for something different. 
To me a game that requires constant attention like Borderlands or Diablo or a clickfest like that isn't what I'm looking for. Yeah Diablo is easy and doesn't require full concentration but you do have to stare at the screen and keep clicking and it is real time.
I tried FTL a few years back and it never clicked with me.
Hexcells and Picross are great calls, but I've already played through all three Hexcells games at least three times, and spent dozens of hours in Paint it Back and Pictopix.
XCom 2 might be good, I recently played through Mutant Year Zero and it was decent for this outside of having to keep a lot of short term memories active to know the locations and states of everything.
Another good one is the Creeper World series as they are relatively slow paced and you can pause at any time and come back easily, there are not lots of little niggles to remember if you step away for 15 minutes.
You should check out Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten. It’s a mix of tower defense and rpg.
You should check out Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten. It’s a mix of tower defense and rpg.
Which reminds me. I pre-ordered Defender's Quest 2 hot off the back of playing the first one, in 2013. 6 years ago! Still waiting.....
I did not like Into the Breach, I can see it is a good recommendation for some people but it did nothing for me.
Defender's Quest is an excellent recommendation and a great game more people should play. I have played through the campaign probably three times and have over 60 hours in it according to Steam. If anyone reading this hasn't tried it, there is a free demo on Steam, give it a shot!
Cross-posting with a recent update: Wilmot's Warehouse! 
On mobile, I still love Desert Golfing. It's just so simple and clean--no menus, ads, or thinking--just aim your shot and then keep going!
On PC, i've found myself going back into the Internet Archives for old Microsoft Entertainment Pack games, like JezzBall, Chip's Challenge, and Rodent's Revenge. Gives me that taste of nostalgia for playing games on my grandma's computer as a kid, and it's fun to see if I still remember how to be good at them!
I find Islanders to fill this role quite nicely, especially if you’re looking for something that doesn’t take terribly much attention.
And if you just have a browser, Geoguessr is one of my perennial favorites. Earth is pretty big so there’s a lot of replayability
Actually, any of the BrainGoodGames can be played in bite sized sessions. They start off easy and gradually get harder as you win, then ease up if you start losing. Out of the ones I've played I like Axes and Acres the best. I've also played Solar Settlers and Militia, which are both good. Militia 2 came out recently, but I haven't played it.
I love roguelikes my own self. Lately my go to has been the wonderful Interstellar Rogue.
Actually, any of the BrainGoodGames can be played in bite sized sessions. They start off easy and gradually get harder as you win, then ease up if you start losing. Out of the ones I've played I like Axes and Acres the best. I've also played Solar Settlers and Militia, which are both good. Militia 2 came out recently, but I haven't played it.
This. Militia is great.
As mentioned here and in the conference call, I second Mini Metro for mobile. It's one of my fallbacks any time need a time waster.
Star Realms. Really great phone adaptation of the physical deck building game. There are so many different expansions, and the weekly arena challenges keep the game physically interesting.
It was one of my & my wife’s favorite physical card games, and the phone version is so good and fast that we haven’t touched the physical cards in at least a year.
Star Realms. Really great phone adaptation of the physical deck building game. There are so many different expansions, and the weekly arena challenges keep the game physically interesting.
It was one of my & my wife’s favorite physical card games, and the phone version is so good and fast that we haven’t touched the physical cards in at least a year.
Yay, Star Realms fans! My partner and I adore the physical game and pretty much everything else put out by that developer. I especially enjoy their latest game, Sorcerer.
On topic, I don't know what my deal is with mobile games, but I just can't seem to get into them. I figure it's similar to my issues with gaming on a PC, which I find difficult since I spend all day working on one. I spend too much time staring at my phone for other things (usually stress-inducing), I have trouble spending leisure time with it. Every now and then a mobile game will sink its hooks in for about a week, then it's dead to me. So, yeah, maybe I need to dig through the posts here and find some possible ways to buck the trend.
If it’s a meeting I have to semi pay attention to, it would be an ARPG. If not, then I like xcom2 and total war Warhammer 2.
March of the Living. It's basically FTL meets crossing the US during a zombie apocalypse. It's charming, challenging, fast gameplay, and a good session can be played in a short amount of time. I'm playing it now on the side when I'm not immersed in AC: Origins and it's great
March of the Living. It's basically FTL meets crossing the US during a zombie apocalypse. It's charming, challenging, fast gameplay, and a good session can be played in a short amount of time. I'm playing it now on the side when I'm not immersed in AC: Origins and it's great
Wishlisted, thanks
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