12 Browser Games To Play While You Procrastinate

Take a break. You deserve it.

Zoë Burnett / BuzzFeed

1. Cookie Clicker

orteil.dashnet.org

How it works: Dominate the world's confectionary economy by baking cookies, one click at a time. That's all you have to do until you rack up enough points to buy upgrades, means of mass production, and grandmas who will do the work for you while you run to meetings and Alt + Tab the game out of your boss's line of vision. Eventually you'll be able to purchase wizard towers, alchemy labs, and even portals to further your entrepreneurial endeavors. It's charmingly bizarre and inexplicably addicting.

Who should play: Aspiring entrepreneurs, cookie monsters, and anyone looking for a month-long side gig.

Click here to cook some clickies — I mean, click some cookies.

2. I Fell In Love With The Majesty of Colors

futureproofgames.com

How it works: How does such a simple game manage to take you through a whirlwind of self-discovery, confusion, anger, love, and heartbreak in just five minutes? This game can be charming or somber depending on how you play it, and the shortness of the game makes it easy to replay so you can test out the different endings. No matter how you approach the game — whether you play as a benign figure quietly observing humanity from the bottom of the sea, or become the monster that everyone expects — you'll have a hard time not falling in love with the majesty of colors.

Who should play: Anyone who needs to release some emotion, whether it be frustration, sadness, or joy.

Click here if you want to feel things.

3. Geoguessr

geoguessr.com

How it works: If you love exploring the world through Google Street View, or just exploring in general, you'll love GeoGuessr. The premise of the game is simple — you're dropped somewhere random in the world, and you have to guess where you are. It's just like having a malfunctioning teleportation pad, and it's a great way to check out cities and scenary that you might not have seen otherwise.

Who should play: Those adventurous spirits who don't want to be trapped in a cubicle all day.

Click here to go exploring.

4. A Dark Room

adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com

How it works: You start off in cold room with no options other than to light a fire. As you stoke the fire, short lines of text appear on the left side of the screen providing sparse narration to the bleak world you will inhabit throughout the game. What begins as a simple, almost poetic, text-based narrative unfolds into a mystery survival game where you must venture beyond your room to collect the resources you need to survive. Though the storyline is intricately woven through the increasingly complex series of choices you must make to survive, the minimalist presentation makes it easy to set the game aside for hours, or even days, at a time. It's the perfect escape when you need a little bit of a mental break.

Who should play: Lovers of stories, escapism, and introspection.

Click here to stoke the fire. Also available on iOS and Android.

5. Monolith

monolith.greenpixel.ca

How it works: Smash the egg. Praise the Monolith. Smash the Monolith. Kill the beast. In this complex incremental clicking game, you can build an entire civilization by praising the monolith and hacking away at a mysterious egg. Once that egg hatches, you’ll have to contend with strange leeches who want to take your monolith. But hey, that’s what armies of warriors and scholars are for. The best part is that it runs in the background, so it won't distract you from doing your work that much.

Who should play: Anyone downtime to worship and destroy things for seemingly no reason.

Click here to break stuff.

6. Robot Unicorn Attack

adultswim.com

How it works: You're might already be familiar with this game, but just in case you've forgotten about the majestic glitter dream that took over our computers approximately six years ago, here you go. It's a relatively quick game, so you can play it while you have some down time between meetings. Wish on a rainbow. Leap through the sky. Dash to your dreams.

Who should play: Fans of hope, shiny things, and "Always" by Erasure being stuck in their head for weeks on end.

Click here to follow your heart. Also available on iOS and Android.

7. Parameters

mogera.jp

How it works: Okay, to be perfectly honest, this one’s kind of confusing. But if you like fighting and strategy and boxes, you’ll feel right at home. This is as bare-bones as an RPG can get. All you have to do is defeat enemy boxes to gain money and experience, which you can then use to purchase better weapons and unlock — you guessed it, bigger enemy boxes. Eventually you’ll fight the final and biggest boss (or box) to win the game. There are no fancy graphics, no sound effects, no story — just squares. Despite its simplicity, or perhaps because of its simplicity, it still has all the intrigue and addicting powers of those RPGs that we keep falling in love with.

Who should play: Gamers who don't want glossy visuals to betray what they're doing during break time.

Click here to fight some squares.

8. 2048

gabrielecirulli.github.io / Via features.en.softonic.com

How it works: Whether you want to zone out and finger mash, or shift gears by solving a low-stress puzzle, this is great game to try out. All you have to do is use the arrow keys to move around the tiles. When two of the same number touch, they add themselves together and merge into a tile with a larger number. The goal of the game? Make a tile with the number 2048! It's as simple as that.

Who should play: Fans of puzzles, math, or colorful squares.

Click here to move some tiles. Also available on iOS and Android.

9. QWOP

foddy.net

How it works: Now here's a throwback game. Put your knowledge of anatomy and physics to the test as you control different parts of a runner's body to get them across the finish line. You only have four keys to work with, so if you think this is easy, well...good luck to you. On the bright side, no matter how well you do, it will look like you're working furiously as you slam on "Q" "W" "O" and "P" to keep your runner from falling flat on their face.

Who should play: Those in need of a laugh AND a good challenge.

Click here to lead the next track star to glory.

10. Loot Clicker

newgrounds.com

How it works: Here’s another clicker game that’s great for RPG fans. All you have to do to get started is farm the land to earn enough money to hire a party full of elders, assassins, knights, and even the undead. Like most RPGs, each member of your party comes with different skills and properties that you will use to lay waste to the creatures you encounter. Collect loot, add buffs, and collect equipment — what more can you want to make your day a little more exciting?

Who should play: RPG lovers who desperately want to get away with gaming at work.

Click here to start adventuring.

11. Candy Box

candies.aniwey.net

How it works: Yay! You have 20 candies. Feel free to eat them all or throw 10 of them on the ground. Not too exciting, right? WRONG. In just a few seconds, an ASCII graphic of a candy merchant shows up offering you the choice of a lollipop or a wooden sword, and you're quickly swept into a bizarre, candy-fueled adventure. The game is as charming as it is unexpected, with each decision offering strange twists and turns through irreverent quests that you can run in the background or obsessively check on throughout the work day.

Who should play: Candy lovers. Story lovers. The impatient and the completionists. So essentially...everyone.

Click here to eat all the candies.

12. Pandemic

pandemic3.com

How it works: Bring humanity to its knees by spreading a disease of your making around the globe. It takes a decent amount of strategy to play, since you need to infect each region before borders are closed and effective medical treatments found. The more lethal your symptoms, the faster your disease will spread; on the flip side, more lethal symptoms means governments will respond quicker to your apocalypse plague. You choose how you want to play, and you watch humanity fight back or go down in flames accordingly.

Who should play: Anyone having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Click here to watch the world burn in your browser.