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Game To Play During Lunch?
Menace writes "Every work day myself and a few other co-workers get 1 hour for lunch. We typically end up with about 20-30 minutes for some form of entertainment during our lunch hour. We are looking for some more multiplayer PC games that can give us a fun and thorough gaming experience in a 20-30 minute sitting. We currently play a few games such as Tetrinet and Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. Please keep in mind the systems we are able to play these on aren't geared for gaming and can hardly run WC3. What games do you play during your lunch hour, or can suggest that meet the specified criteria?"
I'm talking about Duke Nuk'em, Worms, Worms2, even the venerable Scorched Earth... surely they still work? They were a blast. :-)
Just Friday a friend and I hit up the Netplay feature in SNES9x, and played Mario Kart for an hour. It was a blast.
I would go for quick fun games wrather than long drawn out games you can't finish on your lunch hour / half hour.
"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud
We usually play some Texas Hold'em or Euchre depending on the number of people around.
That fitness nazi.
Maybe by the time it takes it change clothes, find a place to run/bike etc. Get back into work clothes. Dry off. Try and not smell like a horse for the rest of the work day. There wouldn't be too much time for exercise in the 30 minutes allotted.
Why do you go exercise instead of posting inane things on slashdot?
In 20 - 30 minutes you can play a round or two either in single player mode, multi-player mode or even online. It's a quick game and every time you play it's different. I have a 3Ghz machine with a gig of ram, and I still play StarCraft from time to time. A game I use to play on my 133Mhz!
Download the original Unreal Tournament. That was a staple at my old office and you will find it to be exactly what you are looking for.
I know you mentioned computer games, but I'm a huge fan of pulling out a deck of Fluxx or Set whenever I have some free time and a friend or two nearby. Rather addicting games. There are implementations of Set multiplayer online.. some are better than others. It's been a while since I played online though, so I don't even have the URLs to the one I really liked anymore.
Seriously. And I'm not talking about Magic or anything like that. I'm talking about Hearts, Spades, Euchre, Pinochle, Whist, Pitch, etc. There are countless games you can play with a $1.00 deck of cards.
I used to work at a place where we did this every day, and the human contact and team building aspects of playing cards were much more enjoyable than any computer game.
Any time we got bored with what we were playing, we'd switch games, or add in a house rule. Plus it lent itself well to activities outside of the workplace. Things like parties at someone's house where we'd all be playing cards. Gatherings to watch a football game, etc. Even better, it's easy to always have a deck of cards in your car, or carry one to a bar with you, so you can always break out a game of something.
And if this isn't enough to sway you, real, live, actual, breathing WOMEN play cards. No, seriously. You might have never met a woman before, but I have, and trust me, they would much rather play cards over a beer than have you say, "Wanna play Warcraft with us?".
Buy a deck. Buy 12. Learn a new game. Have fun. Get laid.
Well, at least have fun.
how about Ur-Quan Masters? It's a remake of the calssic Star Control II. It's known for it's great storyline and non-linear gameplay in single player mode, but the real fun is in super melee. The ship types are varied and easy to learn, so there's great replay value. Best of all, it's Free and free. Check it out at http://sc2.sourceforge.net/.
If you sweat like a pig during a nice and slow 30 minute walk, then maybe it's a sign that you should exercise a bit more.
If you're going to wuss on exercise, just go sit cross-legged on the lawn playing cards and munching. Play bridge, if you're up to it, or spades, hearts, pitch, oh-hell, rummy, gin, whatever.
Get a few games of go or chess going. Keep the boards up all the time so that whoever's playing can wander by whenever they please to stare at the board. Or play go and chess online with each other.
You'll thank me later if you actually drag yourself away from the computer, but if you insist on staying in your cube, find a nice FPS and blow the hell out of each other for 20 minutes a day.
This is not my sandwich.
One thing nobody talks about that is solid gold for gaming on small amounts of time is the PSP's sleep feature. You can put it to "sleep" anytime, and come back later and resume play. Say goodbye to boot-up times - it sleeps and wakes up in less than a second.
"But what about the battery?", you ask. I've put games to sleep on the PSP, come back over 24 hours later, and woken them up - and not even a bar of power has disappeared from the power meter. In sleep mode, the PSP uses very very little power. I don't even turn the thing off anymore, except if I'm going to switch games. I just put it into sleep, and wake it up when I have a few minutes to play. Being able to just pick up where you left off, and not have to spend 2 minutes going through the boot-up and splash screen and menu process, is pure gold. You don't realize how wonderful and welcome this is until you make use of it.
In other words, whether it's Half-Life or a ROM for "Crazy Climber," you had better make sure that you either have the appropriate number of licenses, or proof that the game allows unlimited distribution. Otherwise your IS department will (rightfully) come down on you. Some companies even have a "grounds for immediate termination" clause in there -- you might want to check.
(I don't want to start a flamewar about when something crosses from abandonware to public domain. Your IS department will likely look at it from the most conservative approach, namely, "can we potentially be sued by the license holder if this is on one of our assets." Plus, they're worried about viruses, and so forth, which can have a much bigger impact in the coroporate world than on your home LAN.)
You can get the old original abandonware Star Control 1 or 2, or the remake, Ur-Quan Masters http://sc2.sourceforge.net/>. The head-to-head 2-at-the-same-keyboard mode makes it one of my favourite multiplayer games you can play at a single computer (Worms and Scorched Earth and their successors being the other notable mention).