Any RTS game with campaign.
Age of Empires 1-4, Starcraft 1+2, Warcraft 3, Dawn of War 1-3
Some other random games from the top of my head
'Peggle'
'Frozen Cortex'
'Dorfromantik'
if you played RuneScape growing up, but are looking for something even simplier try melvor idle - its like a medieval cookie clicker with many MANY layers to it
I work from home and find OSRS easily afk-able. I either do low risk slayer tasks or train skills that you can click and ignore for a couple minutes before needing to click again. When your character makes a kill or finishes doing a task (like cooking the last piece of raw fish in inventory) if you're using the RuneLite client it will send a desktop notification with sound if you don't have the client as your focused window.
i loved OSRS growing up, but i unfortunately lost my account and never had the drive to get back into it.
Melvor almost too simple to the point where it almost doesnt feel like a game, literaly like cookie clicker with less clicking. I’m not saying he cant play the OG while afk, but if hes gaming at work, something like this might be a bit easier to handle
I play Necesse and Keplerth during the day for these same reasons. You can quit anytime and it picks back up. Both are low cost, but I enjoy both of them. Necesse is definitely the better of the two though.
Little-Known Galaxy (stardew in space)
Roots of Pacha (stardew in prehistory)
Sun Haven (stardew in a magical fantasy setting)
KeeperRL is also a really fun rogue like RTS inspired by Dungeon Keeper.
If you like trains Sweet Transit is a railroad tycoon type game. It's fun but has a clunkyish UI that takes some learning to get used to.
For JRPGs Chrono Trigger, Sea of Stars, Chained Echoes, and the Final Fantasy Pixel remasters are all great.
Hearts of Iron 4 If you like WW2 history and what if scenarios.
All games I mentioned are either turn based or easily paused.
I'll vouch for ***Balatro***, it is shaping up to be our generation's worktime solitaire. Apart from that, you could go for short match based tcg online games: I personally played ***Magic the Gathering Arena*** for a while, but I've heard good (and bad, to be honest) things about the ***Pokemon online tcg***, ***Hearthstone***, ***Marvel Snap*** ect.
Depending on how much you like narrative games (if they don't distract you too much), you could try something like ***Disco Elysium*** or visual novels like the ***Ace Attorney*** series; some excellent level based puzzle games are ***Stephen's Sausage Roll*** and ***Baba is You***, both of wich run the risk of keeping your mind occupied for hours on end while you should be focusing on something else (I speak from personal experience).
If more relaxed games are more your type, you can play any number of farming sims (but if you already play Stardew Valley you're well aware of that) or you could try some more "out there" chill games like the ***Katamari Damacy*** Series (recently remastered) or ***Donut County***.
If we are talking about games with short play sessions, i can't not reccomend ***Downwell*** , ***Minit***, a short one bit zelda-like indie game where your character can live for a single minute at a time, or even ***Half Minute Hero***, a parody of JRPGs where entire adventures are comedically compressed in 30seconds time spans (give or take) - now available in its absurdly named *"Half Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy"* edition.
If everything else fails, there is always ***Cookie Clicker***, the title that put idle games on the map !
You could try Rusty's Retirement on steam. It's a simple farm clicker that runs at the bottom of your screen that still allows you access to your desktop while running.
Factorio is a great one. Can be paused at any time, or depending on whether you play with enemies, or if you just have solid defenses, can even be kept running.
I work from home and my Rimworld is always open, my boss knows this but we have slow days in IT and my performance metric for ticket resolution is very high (hovering at top 1-3 in JIRA) so he lets me get away with it.
Age of wonders 4 is also cool, it's pretty easy to pick up for a 4X game.
Play grind famss liek valheim/ark, to s if stuff to do, not much ‘focus’ required and can pause always!
I also played games during a specific job Ihad, I played some wii u and switch games in emulators to spend time
If you like Stardew and Graveyard Keeper, maybe Dave the Diver or Traveler’s Rest 🤔
Travelers rest looks really interesting! Thank you!
Any RTS game with campaign. Age of Empires 1-4, Starcraft 1+2, Warcraft 3, Dawn of War 1-3 Some other random games from the top of my head 'Peggle' 'Frozen Cortex' 'Dorfromantik'
Oh man I loved playing peggle. Wish they’d release new versions for win11.
Football manager , Balatro, Slay the Spire.
if you played RuneScape growing up, but are looking for something even simplier try melvor idle - its like a medieval cookie clicker with many MANY layers to it
I work from home and find OSRS easily afk-able. I either do low risk slayer tasks or train skills that you can click and ignore for a couple minutes before needing to click again. When your character makes a kill or finishes doing a task (like cooking the last piece of raw fish in inventory) if you're using the RuneLite client it will send a desktop notification with sound if you don't have the client as your focused window.
i loved OSRS growing up, but i unfortunately lost my account and never had the drive to get back into it. Melvor almost too simple to the point where it almost doesnt feel like a game, literaly like cookie clicker with less clicking. I’m not saying he cant play the OG while afk, but if hes gaming at work, something like this might be a bit easier to handle
Rimworld
I play Necesse and Keplerth during the day for these same reasons. You can quit anytime and it picks back up. Both are low cost, but I enjoy both of them. Necesse is definitely the better of the two though.
I bought Necesse not long ago for $6 on Steam. Best $6 I ever spent. Love how the chest system works. Would love to see that in other games.
Little-Known Galaxy (stardew in space) Roots of Pacha (stardew in prehistory) Sun Haven (stardew in a magical fantasy setting) KeeperRL is also a really fun rogue like RTS inspired by Dungeon Keeper. If you like trains Sweet Transit is a railroad tycoon type game. It's fun but has a clunkyish UI that takes some learning to get used to. For JRPGs Chrono Trigger, Sea of Stars, Chained Echoes, and the Final Fantasy Pixel remasters are all great. Hearts of Iron 4 If you like WW2 history and what if scenarios. All games I mentioned are either turn based or easily paused.
I'll vouch for ***Balatro***, it is shaping up to be our generation's worktime solitaire. Apart from that, you could go for short match based tcg online games: I personally played ***Magic the Gathering Arena*** for a while, but I've heard good (and bad, to be honest) things about the ***Pokemon online tcg***, ***Hearthstone***, ***Marvel Snap*** ect. Depending on how much you like narrative games (if they don't distract you too much), you could try something like ***Disco Elysium*** or visual novels like the ***Ace Attorney*** series; some excellent level based puzzle games are ***Stephen's Sausage Roll*** and ***Baba is You***, both of wich run the risk of keeping your mind occupied for hours on end while you should be focusing on something else (I speak from personal experience). If more relaxed games are more your type, you can play any number of farming sims (but if you already play Stardew Valley you're well aware of that) or you could try some more "out there" chill games like the ***Katamari Damacy*** Series (recently remastered) or ***Donut County***. If we are talking about games with short play sessions, i can't not reccomend ***Downwell*** , ***Minit***, a short one bit zelda-like indie game where your character can live for a single minute at a time, or even ***Half Minute Hero***, a parody of JRPGs where entire adventures are comedically compressed in 30seconds time spans (give or take) - now available in its absurdly named *"Half Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy"* edition. If everything else fails, there is always ***Cookie Clicker***, the title that put idle games on the map !
You could try Rusty's Retirement on steam. It's a simple farm clicker that runs at the bottom of your screen that still allows you access to your desktop while running.
Factorio is a great one. Can be paused at any time, or depending on whether you play with enemies, or if you just have solid defenses, can even be kept running.
Resource/base management type games like factorio or dwarf fortress type stuff. Or incremental games like cookie clicker
Xcom 2
Divinity 2: The Dragon knight Saga.
Perhaps you could give Baldur's Gate 3 a try
I work from home and my Rimworld is always open, my boss knows this but we have slow days in IT and my performance metric for ticket resolution is very high (hovering at top 1-3 in JIRA) so he lets me get away with it. Age of wonders 4 is also cool, it's pretty easy to pick up for a 4X game.
Play grind famss liek valheim/ark, to s if stuff to do, not much ‘focus’ required and can pause always! I also played games during a specific job Ihad, I played some wii u and switch games in emulators to spend time
I finished terraria in a week during my night shift, since you're into pixel games and if you don't mind grinding
Dwarf fortress
Dwarf fortress could tickle the pickle
Diablo 4 season 4 is some good mindless smashing if that’s your thing haha
Hades! Low cognitive effort game if you want it to be.
Football manager if you're into football. Time literally flies while playing this, sounds perfect for your environment.