Whether you’re in between meetings that could have been emails or waiting to clock out, there are days when your brain refuses to get any serious work done and is begging for mindless entertainment.
But killing time at work is an art– you can’t just dive into something super intense like League of Legends.
No, you need to find something casual, something to distract you or give you a few minutes break from your monotonous tasks.
Which is why I’ve compiled my top 10 favorite free online Gamesville games that are perfect for quick brain vacations in the middle of the workday.
You know, the types of games that you can pause or quit when your boss reminds you you’re late for that meeting without giving it a second thought.
If you work at an office, just make sure you mute the sound or wear headphones, unless you want to give yourself away.
And I don’t want to get in trouble for encouraging you to explore the hundreds of free games we have right here on Gamesville– I’m too busy playing!
I admit it: Lightspeed Challenge is probably my favorite game on Gamesville. And I think it could be yours too.
Why? It’s Snake meets Tron. How can you go wrong?!
I was a huge fan of Snake back in the day– it was basically the only reason I kept my Nokia charged back in 2002.
And being able to play it again on my laptop (especially when I’m supposed to be working) feeds both my endless nostalgia and my dwindling dopamine levels.
The mechanics of Lightspeed Challenge are easy: navigate your growing laser beam around a grid and eat as many microchips as you can without crashing into the walls or into yourself.
It’s a perfect game to play at work because you can pause it as soon as you get an email or ping asking for that assignment you were supposed to hand in today.
Or just let your laser crash. The worst that will happen is you might not reach that high score you were chasing.
But hey, there will be plenty of other opportunities to start over. How long can your laser grow before lunchtime?
Fishing Guru might seem like a calm, peaceful game at first, but there’s a little bit of adrenaline involved!
This fun word game requires you to type the words attached to some cute but ugly-looking fish before they reach your guy in the boat.
As you move through the levels (or waves), the words get longer and more fish come at you all at once, so you have to type quickly!
As you type, your guy will reel the words out of the water and the fish will disappear.
If you don’t type fast enough, the fish will attack and destroy the boat, and your guy will drown. Tragic, I know.
This is a perfect game to play at work because it won’t look like you’re doing anything else other than, well, working!
Plus, the stakes are low, but it’s engaging enough to amuse you.
Whenever you need to get back to reality, you can just pause it or let the fish get your guy.
And if you get caught playing Fishing Guru at the office, you can say you’re honing your typing skills.
Modeled after 1980s gaming icon Tetris, this game is the perfect time-killer, whether you work from home or the office.
Trixology challenges you to arrange different shapes as they fall into a grid without leaving any empty spaces between them.
That’s because the bottom row must be fully packed in order for it to disappear and free up space at the top.
If you leave any spaces, your rows won’t vanish, and if your shapes hit the top of the grid, you lose.
You can rotate the shapes to fit the free spaces and make them drop faster, but keep an eye out on the next shape to make sure you’re making the right move.
Trixology is perfect for those Wednesday afternoons when your brain is begging for some stimulation.
So take a break and put your problem-solving skills into use by packing your grid as tightly as possible.
And let its fun, Brazilian-inspired music transport you straight to a beach bar in Rio… at least until someone assigns you a new task.
The original Dinosaur Game aka Chrome Dino is an easter egg that Google Chrome users may have come across when they’ve lost their Internet connection.
It’s a basic game in which you control a pixelated T-Rex running over cacti and ducking from flying dinos across a black-and-white landscape.
Gamesville’s Dinosaur Run follows the same premise, though both the gameplay and background are slightly more complex than the Chrome version.
All you have to do is make your little dino jump to avoid hitting the plants, but watch out!
The speed will fluctuate as will the size of the obstacles and the distance between them, so you have to time your jumps with precision to avoid going extinct.
Because there are no levels to beat on Dinosaur Run, you won’t feel too bad if you have to let your dino crash into a cactus.
But if you have the time, you can keep running towards a new high score.
And best of all, if anyone catches you playing, you can just say your Wi-Fi dropped.
Solitaire is awesome. Your grandma knew it and I hope you know it too.
The original single-player card game has been entertaining bored people since the 18th Century, and it’s still going strong.
But unless you’ve installed the Solitaire Collection on your PC, you might be wondering where you can play the classic card game if you’re not rocking Windows ‘99.
Don’t worry, Gamesville has got you covered.
And although there are several versions of the game, Classic Solitaire is without a doubt the most popular (and my personal favorite).
Although the Gamesville version doesn’t give you that cascade of cards when you win, having your little suit piles all arranged once you’ve cleared the board is still just as satisfying.
If you feel like playing a game of Solitaire, it’s not really practical (or discreet) to lay out a bunch of physical playing cards on your desk.
(Is your desk even big enough to fit a full game of Solitaire? And would you know how to arrange them? Didn’t think so.)
And because there’s no timer and you’re just playing against yourself for the highest score, you can pause the game for as long as you need to finish up that presentation and then jump right back in.
If you like Candy Crush and other tile-matching games, you need to try Jewel Crush!
Let yourself be transported to a shiny, shimmering world of brightly colored jewels and delight in watching them disappear from your screen as you group them into clusters.
Move your jewels horizontally or vertically to group them with tiles that look the same and watch the magic happen!
Because every move counts, and every match can trigger new clusters, you need to think ahead and keep your eye on the targets for each level to get the highest scores possible.
And as you move through the levels, you’ll run into differently-shaped grids that will challenge your strategy.
Though it’s easy to get sucked into this game, it’s just as easy to pause it and snap out of your jewel-infused trance.
The levels don’t take too much time either, so you can set yourself goals and limits, like promising yourself you’ll only play 2 more levels before lunch.
Whether or not you actually stick to them is another matter, but that’s on you, not the game!
If what you’re looking for is a game you can leave open in the background for those quiet moments in the day, then this word jumble might be the perfect fit.
Word Finder Pro is a classic online word search game that gives you a list of 15 words that you must find in a grid full of letters.
All you have to do to win is find every one of the words and highlight them. That’s it!
The words don’t fall into a specific theme or category and can be super random, making it even more challenging to find them.
This is the perfect game to play at work because it’s not intrusive and you can pause it at any time without losing track of what you are doing.
Plus, it’s a good workout for your brain.
Pick it up whenever you have a few minutes, whether it’s after a meeting or while you wait for that client who’s always late.
There’s a timer but you’re just playing against yourself, so it’s no big deal if you forget to pause it and let it run.
This puzzle game is super simple yet challenging enough to keep you entertained.
Basically, you have a colored block set among more wooden blocks, and your goal is to free the colored block from its lame, wood-colored prison.
So how do you do that?
By moving the regular blocks around to free up the path to freedom in as few moves as possible.
But it’s not as easy as it might sound, because you can only move the vertical blocks up or down, and the horizontal blocks left and right.
Unblock It has no timer and only counts how many moves it takes you to free the colored block, which means you can take as long as you want to complete it.
And if you get stuck, you can simply restart the level and try again.
It’s a great game to test your logic and problem-solving skills without getting trapped in something overly intricate.
This fun arcade game was inspired by the classic retro game, Alien Invaders.
You control a spacecraft that has to shoot down a moving cluster of colorful aliens who are shooting back at you.
If you hit the UFO flying above the aliens, you get extra points.
But watch out because the aliens are getting closer and closer, so you need to be strategic about blowing them up before they get too close.
You only have 3 lives to start with, which means you have to be careful about where you position yourself and make good use of the shelters for protection.
But the shelters can only take a certain number of hits and, at some point, you might have to shoot them down yourself to get to the aliens.
Try not to get too excited playing Space Alien Invaders at your desk if you want to keep your unproductivity on the down low.
Which isn’t always easy, because this is the kind of game you can get carried away with.
The real challenge here is harder than killing aliens: it’s not yelling at your screen when you get hit or cheering when you vaporize the colorful space critters.
Just because your office doesn’t have an actual ping-pong table, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the classic paddle game on your screen.
My office could certainly use one. Too bad I work from home and would have to buy it myself.
Just like the real thing, all you have to do in Gamesville’s ping pong online game is hit the ball back and forth against a virtual opponent.
It sounds easy but there is some skill involved if you want to win.
I’m much better at the real game, which only makes me want to play the online version even more, because how dare I suck at it?!
I need to go practice.
If you’re looking for something a bit more stimulating than word puzzles and card games, a few sets of ping pong might be just what you need to kickstart your brain.
See if you can beat the computer in this fast-paced paddle game that challenges your motor skills and reactions.
Just try not to celebrate too loudly when you score a point.
As long as you don’t laugh out loud too often or look like you’re having too much fun, these games can be the perfect time-wasters for a slow workday at the office.
I ranked these games by how easy it is to get away with playing them at the office, and how fun they are.
Do you agree with my list? What are your go-to online games to play at work?
If you haven’t played them all and are looking for a way to make the time pass, explore these and the hundreds of free games available right here on Gamesville!
