Games built for the five-minute break

There's a whole category of mobile games designed around interruption. You want to open them, play one round, and put the phone away without losing anything. These are my favorite kind of games to keep installed.

The trick is a loop that resolves quickly. A single race, one cast, one shift at the diner. Turbo Diner Rush is a good example — each shift is a self-contained burst of chaos that ends cleanly, so you're never mid-thought when your stop arrives.

Contrast that with big RPGs like Ember Crown Saga, which are wonderful but demand real time. There's room for both on a phone, but you should know which mood a game is for before you download it.

My rule of thumb: if a game punishes you for stopping after five minutes, it doesn't belong in your break-time rotation. Save it for the weekend.