Gaming is a terrific way to pass the time, but certain multiplayer experiences may consume hours of your time and aren’t particularly suited to bite-sized play sessions.
If your calendar is jam-packed but you still have a few minutes each day for interactive pleasure, why not try one or more of the following games that won’t take up too much of your time?
Collectible card games
There are a plethora of collectable card games available that promote online play. The benefit of many games of this genre is that when you engage in a match with another player, the length usually falls within 10 minutes and there aren’t any cutscenes or stories to interrupt the action.
Hearthstone, a long-standing fixture of the scene from Blizzard Entertainment, benefits from having a strong new player experience, a free-to-play business model that doesn’t require you to pay money, a welcoming and accessible visual, and ties to the larger Warcraft world.
Another example is Gwent, which builds on the card game seen in The Witcher series.
It eliminates most of the randomness from the equation and instead emphasizes a contest of wits, making it maybe more strategic than Hearthstone. It’s also perfect for fitting in at any time of day since games may take as little as five minutes.
First-person shooters
The fast-paced nature of shooters may mask a considerably more interesting online play environment, but if you want to go into a game, play a round or two, and then go back to your life, there are certain to be titles that meet all the conditions.
Avoid Apex Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone since they are FPS variants that may take up to 30 minutes or more to play out after the game has begun.
Instead, stick to the standard Call of Duty experience, with simple deathmatch fights being the most time-efficient.
Nowadays, there are other outstanding FPS games with online connection available, like Halo Infinite and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Social games
Some games are not about fast reactions and precise accuracy, but rather about your ability to use your intellect to understand what other players are thinking.
The finest illustration of this is the game Among Us, which swept the globe and spawned numerous imitators.
The fundamental premise is that you join a group of other players on a spacecraft as an astronaut, with between one and three of them being impostors. It is the responsibility of the non-impostors to identify the impostors before they are secretly eliminated.
A game of Among Us will take between 10 and 15 minutes to complete, but this time can increase with larger groups, so if you’re pressed for time, strive for smaller groups.
Battle royale game
We have already discussed CoD: Warzone and Apex Legends, both of which belong to the broad battle royale genre, and stated that their duration makes them unsuitable for brief play sessions.
Baldi’s Basics is the best of the available multiplayer elimination-style games that offer fast, enjoyable sessions.
Simple controls enable you to navigate your multicolored, jelly-like character through obstacles in a field with fifty other participants. Over the course of several rounds, this is reduced until only one champion remains.
Co-op games
Cooperation-based games, as opposed to competition-based games, are less common, but there are still some outstanding examples that allow you to work together to achieve a common objective.
The Overcooked series is an excellent choice for brief but delicious multiplayer sessions, with the second game supporting up to four players online.
In each round, you and the other players must prepare dishes in a restaurant kitchen by gathering ingredients, preparing them, combining them, and delivering orders to eager customers.
It sounds straightforward, but as things become more frantic, it can become blissfully chaotic. And since each round is timed, it will not interfere with your other engagements.
Sports games
Lastly, sports games have a great deal to offer in terms of online entertainment and fast play sessions. There are numerous simulator-style sports games, such as football and basketball, but we recommend Rocket League for a more kinetic and arcade-style experience.
It’s soccer, but the gratification of using a remote-controlled automobile to push a large ball into the goal is unrivaled. So get out there, try out some online activities, and don’t squander your spare time!