"Background" games

[Utter Shit]

Don't really know what to call them and that sounded as good as any.

My job is very quiet at the moment and I can get away with having games on my work PC, anyone recommend some games? They need to be ones that you can duck out of at a moment's notice without impacting the game massively, don't require much in the way of graphics and are mostly mouse-based rather than needing a controller or much use of the keyboard. For example I've played a lot of Football Manager, Rollercoaster Tycoon (the original isometric ones) and International Cricket Captain...so I guess management games?

They don't need to be new ones either, that basic but charming design of RCT is great for example.

Any ideas?

[bgmnts]

Civilization.

[Mister Six]

Download SCUMM, the point and click emulator, and get all the classic adventure games. I think Beneath a Steel Sky is free to download, but the Monkey Island games et al are only an illegal download away.

[Johnny Textface]

8 ball

[Chedney Honks]

Papers Please.

[JaDanketies]

Dungeon Keeper. If it's too easy, download the Deeper Dungeons expansion pack.

[ImmaculateClump]

This is the game you want! 60% off at the minute, don't buy the second one, it's gash. Curious Expedition - https://store.steampowered.com/app/358130/Curious_Expedition/

roguelikes in general have got you covered. I like the simplified, less complicated ones because I'm thick.

I like Golden Krone Hotel - https://store.steampowered.com/app/497800/Golden_Krone_Hotel/
I like Approaching Infinity, played a lot of that this year - https://store.steampowered.com/app/551620/Approaching_Infinity/
Dungeons of Dredmor - https://store.steampowered.com/app/98800/Dungeons_of_Dredmor/
Cardinal Quest 2 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/378030/Cardinal_Quest_2/
Sword of the Stars: The Pit - https://store.steampowered.com/app/233700/Sword_of_the_Stars_The_Pit/
Rogue Fable 3 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/956450/Rogue_Fable_III/

Some good turn based roguelites as well. Slay The Spire is nice - https://store.steampowered.com/app/646570/Slay_the_Spire/

[Utter Shit]

Cheers for the recommendations everyone, I'm going to have a proper look through these today! I'd seen Papers Please before but dismissed it because (contradicting what I said earlier) the graphics were so basic, I'm guessing the gameplay makes that irrelevant?

[Neomod]

Dungeon Master and The Bard's Tale spring to mind.

[JaDanketies]

Any of the old Bullfrog God Games would be good really, like Theme Hospital and Theme Park

And the old Sim games, i.e. Sim City, Sim Ant.

[Utter Shit]

I can see that Civilisation 3 is dead cheap on Steam, would that be a good one to get as a starting point?

[MojoJojo]

Civ II and Civ IV are the sort of classics, in my mind. Completely unasked for, and actually a bit shit because I haven't really played much of most of them, brief history of civilisation.

Civ II is basically a refinement of Civ I - it's Civ 1 with the rough edges knocked off and a bit more content (and live action advisors, who are sorely missed). This is in the most addictive. You spend a lot of time moving units about, without really having to make any significant decisions. It's almost like a clicker game. This is also it's weakness - middle to end game turns start taking a long time, and it can turn into a slog to complete.

Civ III - basically just added some content and a few more systems. It could well be a better game than Civ II, but if you've already exhausted Civ II, like I had, the new systems aren't interesting enough to tempt you back in.

Civ IV - a big redesign to try and address a lot of weaknesses. Mechanisms put in place to stop some of the "cheap" strategies in the earlier games - e.g. spamming cities is explicitly punished, and you really have to plan out where you are going to place cities. Army system so wars don't involve moving hundreds of units around individually. The strategy is a lot more challenging and a lot more interesting. The downside of this is that it's a lot more involving and less of a background.

Civ V/VI - I dunno, I've got kids now and I don't have time. Hexagons and stuff.

Probably worth mentioning Freeciv - open source version that mostly resembles civilisation 2. You can play it in a browser apparently.

[MojoJojo]

For recommendations:
Strange Adventures in Inifinte Space - https://rich.itch.io/strangeadventures

It's a free, fun "coffee break" game - each run should take 20 minutes or less. Has a sequel on steam for £4 - Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, which is basically just better, with a lot more content, and another sequel Infinite Space 3, which is free.

[Hand Solo]

There's loads of old websites with thousands free flash games you can just play in your browser to save installing stuff and loading up programs you can just dip in and out easily at work. A few of the ones I remember liking were Sushi-Go-Round (which is essentially one of those Tapper type speed management games there's a million of with different skins) and Theme Hotel.

[MojoJojo]

Flash support is planned to be removed in Chrome 87, which should be coming out in December.

[JaDanketies]

Flash support is planned to be removed in Chrome 87, which should be coming out in December.

yep. Newgrounds.com have a load of fun flash games and they've made a Newgrounds Player so you can enjoy their games in perpetuity.

[Hand Solo]

Flash support is planned to be removed in Chrome 87, which should be coming out in December.

I was wondering when it was going to be completely phased out, I remember back in 2010 it was a big thing that Apple weren't supporting flash in favour of html5, because half the internet ran on Flash. 10 years later and it's still clinging on for life.

Any other Flash type browser games that anybody can recommend? I can't be arsed installing lots of stuff on my laptop so they're preferred atm.

[JaDanketies]

I was wondering when it was going to be completely phased out, I remember back in 2010 it was a big thing that Apple weren't supporting flash in favour of html5, because half the internet ran on Flash. 10 years later and it's still clinging on for life.

Any other Flash type browser games that anybody can recommend? I can't be arsed installing lots of stuff on my laptop so they're preferred atm.

Epic Battle Fantasy 5 sponged up a lot of free time earlier this year. I never beat the final boss.

[Hand Solo]

Epic Battle Fantasy 5 sponged up a lot of free time earlier this year. I never beat the final boss.

Will check it out.

On a side note, anybody know any retro type games with interesting mechanics..? I'm talking stuff I don't need super advanced hardware to run so I could possibly play on my phone or Android TV, mostly pixel art type things, platformers and the like, like Super Meat Boy. Celeste would be a good shout, but it isn't available on Android. I can plug my PC into the HDMI on my TV for PC titles but most of the time I cba.

A mate of mine plays loads of First Person Shooters on his Xbox and I get bored as fuck sitting on the sofa watching him sitting on the sofa and can't be arsed with them anymore tbh. I grew up playing Doom/Duke Nukem/Quake and 25 years later the genre has better graphics but still almost exactly the same games (with a few exceptions) but with a different skin.

[thehungerartist]

Prison Architect

[Hand Solo]

Prison Architect

Ah, this is available on Android, I didn't know that, cheers.

Also I found something on Android a bit similar to Celeste, Dandara.

[MojoJojo]

If you got it, probably a good time to search through the "Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality". I'm sure there must be plenty of good background games in there.

[Hand Solo]

Tell you what, still the best 'dip in and out' game for a lull is Tetris.

I have the DS version on my phone using this DS emulator which seems to be the fastest free one, and enables you to use a bluetooth controller or place onscreen controls exactly where you need them. For instance I can choose to have both screens on vertical or horizontal positions or just one screen, or resize them and fit manually where my control inputs are to fit the size of my screen. For Tetris I either hold the phone vertical and have both screens, one at the top, one at the bottom and controls inbetween to fit my hands, or hold the phone horizontally and have just the one screen with my controls mapped to each side up at the top as that's where your thumbs tend to hover when holding a phone. It's great. I nip to the bog and have a few minutes of no-holds-barred block fitting.

Let's hope I'm not on the phone so long I get a block. LOL

[Ferris]

80 Days sounds like it would fit the bill. It's a great bit of work.

[Phil_A]

Dungeon Master and The Bard's Tale spring to mind.

Er, are you kidding or seriously suggesting two massively involved and time-consuming dungeon crawlers as casual games?

I'd suggest something along the lines of Spacechem, a puzzle game that can be fairly mentally taxing but is very easy to just log into and tinker around whenever you have a few moments.

[Zetetic]

80 Days sounds like it would fit the bill. It's a great bit of work.

Has fairly time-sensitive bits, although eminently pause-able.

[Zetetic]

Tell you what, still the best 'dip in and out' game for a lull is Tetris.

You can't really duck out of a Tetris game at a moment's notice and then pickup where you left off.

[Hand Solo]

You can't really duck out of a Tetris game at a moment's notice and then pickup where you left off.

Yes you can, you pull out of the emulator and it pauses, or just press start and it pauses whichever tickles your whatsoevers.

[Urinal Cake]

Any turn-based game with a Wait option would do.

[Ferris]

Has fairly time-sensitive bits, although eminently pause-able.

Does it?! Shit.