10 games to play in your lunchbreak

1. Email games

Not got the time for a full strategy title in your lunch hour? Play-by-mail games have been going for centuries, with competitors sending each other their chess moves over the course of motnhs, if not years. With the advent of the internet, the shift has been towards more reaction-based strategy games, such as the aliens vs humans vs robots-themed Laser Squad Nemesis, yet chess still apears to be the king - as evidenced by the number of free correspondence chess serves around, including red hot pawn.

2. Word games

If you're a lover of word games, then the internet is a gold-mine, through it can sometimes be hard to find games that are both good and free. East of the Web's games are both simple and addictive, while A Game A Day supplies a new game every day. If you just want to increase your typing speed, The Typing of the Dead is a short zombie-shooting game you control by touch-typing irrelevant words that pop up on the screen.

3. IGDF games

The Independent Games Festival is a great source for innovative or original titles. Samorost is an eastern European puzzle game with stunning design and art - its (paid-for) sequels are at samorost.net. Each one shouldn't take you more than an hour to play through. Armadillo Run is a physics-based puzzle game where you have to build an object using a range of materials to get a rolling armadillo from one side of the screen to the other. It's challenging, education and well worth a go.

4. Browser MMOs

Installing and patching a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game will consume several lunch breaks by itself; thankfully, there are plenty of fun browser-based MMOs around that are quick to launch and play. Two of the best are Puzzle Pirates, a puzzle-based pirate world and Bang! Howdy, a real-time strategy game with a variety of short games to choose from.

5. Management games

Fantasy management games enable you to take control of a fantasy sports team of real-life players, which you select with a given budget. Mostly free, the time commitment is small, though, to be a whizz, you'll need to study the form of players and the fixtures more deeply than maybe you otherwise would. The main footbal league is fantasy.premierleague.com while for cricket try cricketweb.net/fantasycricket.

6. Browser minigames

There's an enormous selection of work-safe minigames available on the internet, including those on popcap and Hippybuggs. All you normally need to run these is either Flash or Shockwave (Internet Explorer will prompt you to install these if you don't have them). These minigames are simple, will only take up a few moments of your time and are easy to switch between. They run in your browser and can be of any genre, although many are shooting, fighting or puzzle games.

7. Free games

There's an enormous range of short, free games in Windows Vista itself, ranging from old classics, such as Spider Solitare and Solitare to Freecell and Hearts. Even Minesweeper has updated graphically to fit in with the new OS. Mahjong titans, Purple Place and Inkball are all new titles, with Chess Titans adding a much-needed traditional element to the line-up. Whatever their age, they've all been updated with the latest graphics technology and now look gorgeous to behold. They've on your machine now, so why not give them a try?

8. Multiplayer retail games

In search of an exciting experience at lunchtime, you might be lucky enough to find that your company has kitted you out with some top-notch PCs. If so, there's no harm in exploring multiplayer retail games. Most first-person shooters, such as Doom or Shadowrun, are rewarding and exciting in shorts bursts, making them ideal for lunchtime play, especially against your colleagues.

9. Rapid strategy games

If you want to play with your friends, but big guns aren't your thing, perhaps tin soldiers are? You could invest in Microsoft Game Stuio's excellent Rise of Nations, which features the fastest multiplayer battles you'll experience. Alternatively, there's a selection of simple single-player strategy titles to play that are available for free, such as the Battle of Wesnoth or C-evo.

10. Worksafe games

If you're playing when you shouldn't be (naughty!), then a game with a Worksafe mode might be for you. The ultimate one is Defcon, by Introversion Games. It can be set to run in Office Mode, where if a certain hotkey is hit during the game, it drops back to the desktop. It also leaves a system tray icon running that slyly updates you on how you're doing in the game, allowing you to play and pretend to work. However, as Office Mode runs in real-time it can last up to six hours, unlike the other modes in the game, which might only 30 minutes. So, we'd recommend you stick to any mode but Office.