Games that fit in a tab

Sometimes you want a game and you do not want a launcher, a download or a tutorial. These are the games to play when bored: each lives in a browser tab, asks for no account, and is built around a single idea.

Start with The Password Game, which begins like a normal sign-up form and then piles absurd rules onto your password. Infinite Craft lets you combine items, starting from four classical elements, with no fixed end. If you like numbers going up, Cookie Clicker is the idle game that popularized the genre, and Universal Paperclips is a slow burn that goes somewhere unexpected. Prefer words and maps? Semantle asks you to guess by meaning, and Globle is a daily geography puzzle.

We stretch the word "game" a bit on purpose. Thought experiments such as Absurd Trolley Problems count, and so do learning games like Flexbox Froggy, which teaches CSS by having you move frogs.

Time is the main thing to watch. Idle clickers and crafting games are designed to be hard to leave, and our time-to-enjoy badge says "rabbit hole" for those. For a quick hit, filter for 30 seconds or five minutes on the button.

More ways in: the fun websites list mixes games with other toys, and Sandbox Toys covers falling-sand physics.