Great Games You Can Play At Your Office Desk
Sitting at a desk all day can be pretty rough. Here are some solo games which don’t take up much space that you can play at your office desk.
Ultra Tiny Epic Kingdoms
Ultra Tiny Epic Kingdoms is one of my go-to travel games. The whole game is just about the size of a deck of playing cards and it’s got a very clever solo mechanic.
Setting up for a solo game with 1 dummy player shrinks the footprint of Ultra Tiny Epic Kingdoms to just about a square foot if you really squish all the cards together.
The game plays through shared action selection, where every time a player chooses an action, each other player can do the same action. Through gathering resources and waging battles with one another, each player is attempting to gain the most victory points by the time the game ends.
What I like most about UTEK is that with all the different factions and map cards, there really is a lot of replayability. Even if you’re not looking for a deck game, I highly recommend Ultra Tiny Epic Kingdoms.
Deep Space D-6
Depp Space D-6 is a Print n’ Play game that is designed to fit inside an Altoids tin. You’re attempting to venture through deep space, combating hazards and pirates along the way.
Each turn, a new event is encountered and more often than not, attacks your ship. You deal with these threats by rolling 6 dice, each result representing a different active crew member. Each crew member has different actions they can take to overcome these obstacles or to repair the shields or hull of the ship.
Deep Space D-6 has a very small footprint for how much game play there is here. There is also a full version with custom dice and high quality components. But I’ve always been a fan of microgames. You can download the Print n’ Play at the Board Game Geek files page.
Tetrarchia
Tetrarchia (Latin for Rule of Four) is pretty different from the other games on this list. In my opinion, it’s the ‘least microgame’ microgame here.
The game plays 1 to 4 players, but a single player can control all 4 of the Emperors for a solo experience. Each of these Roman Emperors is attempting to put down rebellion within the empire while also dealing with barbarian hordes coming from the borderlands.
On each turn, that Emperor has 6 action points to allocate towards various actions: Moving an army, sailing across the sea, securing military forces within a region or subduing unrest and revolts and attacking invading barbarians. The Emperors win if they can fully secure the borders before the barbarians invade Rome but they lose if Rome is lost or if Unrest reaches unmanageable levels.
I like Tetrarchia because of the theme and how much of a deep game it is. For as small of a footprint as it has, it does not play like a tiny game.
Pocket Dungeon
As great as these games are, they are all pretty obvious they are games. What if your office is less accommodating to the gamer within you?
That’s where Pocket Dungeon comes in. I can personally attest to the stealthy success of Pocket Dungeon. This print n’ play game is designed to fold down to a small 2″x 4″ booklet. Leave it on your desk and no one is the wiser. The booklet unfolds into multiple sections: 2 character sheets and 1 dungeon map.
The game comes with rules on how to randomly generate each dungeon through dice rolls with different rooms, monsters, locked doors, treasures and spells. You can find various pieces of equipment and use the character sheet to determine your stats and what items you wield.
There are multiple classes and a decent level up system. Each class has different stats, set of starting equipment and special abilities. To win, you must get to the end of the dungeon, defeat the end boss and escape.
“But wait,” you say, rudely interrupting me, “Rolling dice is loud! Totally ruins the nature of this supposed ‘stealth’ game!” True, but chill and let me finish before you interrupt me like that. Geez.
Pocket Dungeon recommends using their custom non-patented ‘stealth dice’. Write the numbers 1 through 6 several times in the corner of a small post-it notepad and whenever you need to roll, flip to a random page.
BAM! Random number generated!
If you plan on sneaking a few games in between filling out those TPS reports, post-it dice can be a great way to get away with some random number generation if you don’t have access to a phone or programming calculator.
Pocket Dungeon also has multiple difficulty options as well as some pre-designed scenarios you can play. All of this can be found on the Board Game Geek Files page.
Utopia Engine
If you work in a No Fun Zone but want something a little more involved than Pocket Dungeon, check out Utopia Engine. The game plays with 2 sheets of paper, 2 dice and a pencil. All easily hid under a stack of papers or in a manila folder.
Utopia Engine has you searching the 6 locations in search of powerful artifacts. Each artifact needs to be found and empowered to run the Utopia Engine, which will prevent the encroaching doomsday.
Searching each location requires rolling dice and trying to balance the dice rolls in such a way as so the total reaches as close to 0 as possible. Once each artifact is found it is brought back to your workshop to empower it.
You only have 2 weeks to finish your quest before the doomsday destroys the world. But with some luck and some skill, you can activate the God’s Hand machine to slow the end of the world long enough to complete the Utopia Engine and save the day.
The print n’ play version of the game can be found at Nevermore Games Downloads.
Final Thoughts
There are other great tiny games out there: One Deck Dungeon, Friday and others. But while they are great, I felt like their footprint was a little too big for a typical messy office desk. Still, if you like micro games like these, do check them out as well.
Thanks for reading!
Bell of Lost Souls does not openly endorse shirking work to play games.
Any managers who read this, please consider this satire. Everyone else, happy gaming.
