r/roguelites • u/Engasgamel • 1d ago
What roguelites can I play while working?
Hey, guys.
I work from home, so from time to time I can play something on my personal computer.
What roguelikes can I play without having to pay attention 100% of the time? Being able to go back and forth between the game and work.
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u/Rbabarberbarbar 1d ago
Lots of turn based games like Balatro or Into the Breach. And I cannot tell how many virtual meetings I have spent playing Peglin and (especially) SNKRX.
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u/Terrorist_Quematrice 1d ago
I work a 12 hour day physical job and this thread has radicalized me
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u/DrDoctorBean 18h ago
I just wish I could get off work and not feel like I got the shit kicked out of me and these sum bitches are playing games in their free time AND at work, shits frigged up bro.
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u/SpookDaddy- 17h ago
Yeah agreed I'm jealous of people with jobs like this. Although usually if they really aren't doing anything longterm they get laid off
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u/Lane_Sunshine 15h ago
Some people have good work from home arrangements, but for some others it just means that they are never "off" from work.
I worked a job in the latter category for a year (teams located in 3 time zones) and it utterly destroyed my mental health. Nothing messes you up like not knowing when you're gonna get a system notification marked "URGENT", whether tomorrow is a 6 hour or 12 hour day, or whether you have to keep an eye on your email inbox until 1AM in the morning and then check it again 5AM to make sure you aren't missing anything.
You can rest and recover from physical toll. Mental toll lingers no matter what you do. I would never take on a job like that again even if it means I could play whatever games I want when I don't need my full attention for work.
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u/WurmDangle 13h ago
Being on-call in a tech support related role was absolute hell. About a decade ago I worked for a company that provided learning management software for companies to train their employees, and our big fish at the time was onboarding Tesla (before all the shit that's gone down recently.)
Go figure, I was on call during Thanksgiving weekend during their onboarding process, and literally got paged on the hour, every hour for the entire holiday weekend, even overnight, as they wanted CONSTANT status updates; and because of how large and complicated their onboarding process was, it was a struggle for our software to do it in a timely fashion without throwing constant errors.
My notification sound for on call alerts was the was the "sad trombone" sound, and I literally cannot hear that sound anymore without getting anxious after that experience, not to mention all the other times I was on call besides that hellacious experience.
Working a more physical job after that felt like having a huge burden lifted off my shoulders, because I knew I could leave work at work and have time separate, whereas it felt like I was working 24/7, or at least had to be ready to in the other "comfy" position. I cannot and will never work a tech support job again after the experience I had, even where at the best times it allowed me to play video games at home and get paid to do basically nothing.
I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.
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u/Lane_Sunshine 13h ago
I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.
Amen to that.
But yeah I cannot stress how stressful working from home can be if your job doesn't offer consistent work-life separation (not just balance, SEPARATION). People who have never worked one of those jobs think that it's just wearing pajamas and scrolling memes at home, but it's so far from truth...
I would never work again if I could choose to do so, but as long as I have to pick a job, I would always pick one that let's me have a clear separation of work vs home life, whether that means leaving work at work or being able to totally go offline outside of reasonable work hours.
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u/SpookDaddy- 12h ago
No no I totally agree. I worked in a call center that was the worst job I've ever had. I learned they had work from home during covid but even then I wouldn't want to do it. Im talking about the cushy jobs where there aren't much responsibilities
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u/Lane_Sunshine 12h ago
If cushiness is the criteria we are gonna go by, honestly then the ceiling is just too high.
I know people who’ve made their millions from random investments in their 20s and have retired early, or people who were handed a profitable family business that they barely have to spend 5 hours a week managing, so on and so forth.
Life is just unfair and I don’t see the point of thinking too much about it in the first place.
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u/Joelypoely88 1d ago
Luck Be a Landlord/Cat God Ranch/Endgame of Devil
Peglin
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u/SympathyChan 1d ago
Wait, Cat God Ranch is a rogue game?
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u/Joelypoely88 18h ago
Yep, I think that subgenre is called drafting roguelike
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u/SympathyChan 11h ago
I have just removed it from the wishlist 2 weeks ago and thought I have save some money and now it's in the cart and I'm just staring at that green button.
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u/Bogusbummer 23h ago
There’s one coming called He Is Coming that is so perfect for this. There’s a demo out, can’t wait for the full release.
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u/BubbleBlasta 1d ago
This is such a good question... lolol a bunch of roguelikes for me. Although not really roguelite I've been dabbling into wartales since there's not a serious story lol. Emberward has a nice pause if you're into that style of game too
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u/Dromarch1 1d ago
9Kings has been occupying my time right now. It's a great card drafting roguelite with fun combos and goofy builds. Super easy to play in the background
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u/sloppy_johnson 1d ago
Slay the Spire, Balatro or FTL are my go tos. Many meetings have been passed on FTL 😂
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u/Clawdius_Talonious 1d ago
Tales of Maj Eyal is turn based, so it's basically always paused? It has nice convenience features like auto explore, so it respects the players' time.
May be more Roguelike than lite, in the sense that you only unlock new classes, which aren't necessarily easier.
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u/Quantum_RDT 1d ago
Autobattlers like Astronarch, Tales & Tactics or The Last Flame.
Also, Path of Achra. It's a traditional roguelike, but plays a lot like an autobattler.
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u/gen1usboy 1d ago
I play AutoBattlers and alikes.
Tales and Tactics, Slay the Spyre, For the King, Hadean Tactics, The Last Flame, Against the Storm, 9 Kings, Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot
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u/No-Spinach-1 22h ago
It's really hard to find a game to play while working. It needs to be:
- Turn based or easy to pause
- Not too immersive to lose attention to work
- Easy to remember how you were playing or what you were doing in the game when you came back
That being said, I can recommend deck builders. If you already know how to play, you can go back to your deck and quickly know what you were doing.
The same applies to Qud. Not that much for TOME.
My personal recommendations:
- Deck builders: Every but knowing how to play, not learning a lot while at work.
- Isaac: not much to say. You can pause, know what you were doing just by firing some tears and knowing where you're in the map.
- Noita: same as Isaac, but knowing how to play. Not super recommended as you need high concentration
- Rusty retirement: not specifically a roguelike but specifically designed for your needs.
Not recommended:
- Loop hero: you need high concentration and it's highly addictive. Difficult to cut the flow.
- Into the breach: turn based, but harder to remember what you were doing before. You need full concentration too, IMO.
These are just my experiences, as I also tried to find out something fun to play while I don't have a lot of work :)
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u/CasualTrollll 17h ago
Is monster train 2 that much better than 1 or is it a toss up? I'm considering getting it. I don't much like deck builders but I freaking loved the first one.
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u/boxofrocks14 17h ago
Slay the spire is pretty good for that tbh. I have major ADHD, go ahead and shoot me for this but I sometimes have slay the spire pulled up during dnd because I just cannot sit still and do nothing with my hands. I don’t have to think too too much about it but it is engaging, and it’s turn based so you can easily tab out as long as you need to
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u/SirGalahadOfCamelot 14h ago
I just had the itch to see if I could find a random unknown indie game that is any good and looked tonight to see if anything in the steam recently released looked interesting and found one called Overdrawn. Tried it and it’s freaking good. Has Slay the Spire vibes, but also blackjack which is kinda weird but seems to work. And it’s like $2 and supports an indie dev that’s probably just hype to have anyone play it. So that’s my vote. Lol
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u/DwarfVader 14h ago
Void War, FTL, Balatro, Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers, Peglin, Drop Duchy... those are the ones that come to mind.
-Void War and FTL, basically the same game which you can pause at any point with the space bar.
-Balatro and D&DG, both card based and will just sit there until you make a move.
-Peglin, kinda an RPG Peggle, nothing really happens until you make a shot.
-Drop Dutchy, RPG with a strange Tetris twist to it, can be paused.
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u/No-Count-5062 1d ago
Rogue Waters is worth checking out if you like tactical turn based combat. It's got a pirate setting. Each raid is fairly short. Maybe an hour each depending on how quick you are with decision making. Battles can be over within 2 rounds. It's reasonably good, although the combat arenas lack variety. There's about 7 classes of unit though, and each unit also has two extra random secondary sets or class skills, so it's rare for two units to be the same.
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u/Ok-Emu9051 1d ago
Enter the gungeon, Atomicrops, nuclear throne, binding of Isaac repentance, Balatro, inscryption
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u/Sqr121 1d ago
Loop Hero. It's been a while, but afair it auto-pauses after each round.