Many video games can take up hours of a player's time, thanks to long lists of quests and missions or grind-heavy gameplay mechanics that hook players with the temptation of gaining "just one more level." Gamers who find hours of gameplay exhausting, want to manage their time more responsibly, or simply prefer short play sessions should check out the video games listed below, carefully designed to provide a satisfying experience in short bursts and to not punish players for taking breaks.
There's an overlap, whether always intentional or not, between the psychology of video game design and the operant conditioning experiments scientists perform with lab rats. Video games, particularly RPGs, are broken down into a series of challenges; when a player overcomes these challenges, they're rewarded with new items, new stories, new abilities, or even simply praise. The pleasure and satisfaction players get from these small triumphs encourages them to keep playing the game, which can grow problematic if it takes hours on end to finish a single challenge, as is seen in multiplayer games with lots of grinding, like Destiny.
Compared to MMORPGs or management games like Stardew Valley, where players can easily lose track of time, games like Outer Wilds are designed such that 30 minutes of playtime can be just as satisfying as hours - if not more. The key to these lunch break-friendly games lies in their structure, flow and feel: A lack of grinding mechanics discourages players from indulging in sunk cost fallacies, game chapters are structured so players can complete a satisfying challenge in a short amount of time, and in-game rewards for taking a break encourage players to, well, take a break.
Games For People With No Time - Fallen London
Fallen London, a browser-based story game created by the same team as Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies, is a surreal and humorously horrific game about a prisoner (a "delicious friend") recently released into an alternate version of Victorian London that was stolen by bats and dragged down into a dark, gloomy underworld called the Neath. By interacting with story cards, selling items at the Echo Bazaar, and cultivating contacts with Fallen London's quarreling factions, players can uncover sinister conspiracies, encounter eldritch horrors, flirt with devils from Hell, and acquire truly fancy top hats. Each action in Fallen London consumes a candle, and after consuming a number of them, players must wait for a day for them to refresh (though they also have the option of spending real-life money to expedite the process).
Games For People With No Time - Superbrothers: Swords & Sworcery
First released in 2011 for mobile devices and then ported over to Steam, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is a small, hip blend of puzzle adventure and turn-based RPG built around atmosphere, a killer synth soundtrack, and lovingly detailed 8-bit graphics that foreshadowed similar indie retro games like Hyper Light Drifter. The game's protagonist, a Bronze Age warrior woman referred to simply as the Scythian, journeys through a magical landscape to claim the power of the Megatome and, afterwards, the power of three artifacts called Trigons (a clear reference to the Triforce from the Legend Of Zelda games).
Two factors combine to make Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (made by the same creators of upcoming sci-fi game Jett: The Far Shore) a chill game players can dip in and out of with ease. First, the gameplay is soothing and high on ambiance, letting player enjoy themselves in the moment as they wander around striking environments. Second, interludes in the game frequently encourage players to take a break and come back another time. For instance, a certain puzzle can only be solved by waiting for the phases of the real-life moon to align.
Games For People With No Time - Outer Wilds
The 2019 science fiction exploration game Outer Wilds puts players in the shoes of an alien astronaut from a rustic space program on their home world, voyaging between the planets of their solar system to research the artifacts and ruins left behind by a precursor civilization. Complicating this mission of peaceful exploration is the small, irksome issue of the sun exploding. Every 22 minutes, the solar system's sun goes supernova, and the player's astronaut gets hurled back in time to the beginning of the game. This division of gameplay into 20-minute increments makes it easy for players to experience and digest Outer Wilds in short chunks, as the astronaut protagonist uses information from previous loops to uncover the mysteries of their solar system and find a way to save their doomed sun.