Adventure games

An adventure game gives you a character, a place and a goal, and leaves much of the route up to you. About 300 games carry the label here, and the shelf reaches well beyond exploration: next to some 130 general adventure titles there are roughly 85 platformers and close to 50 runners. The remainder is a scattering of role-playing games, mining games and survival challenges, where gathering and building matter as much as moving on.

The Floor Is Lying is a platformer built on traps, where floors vanish, arrows mislead and every fall sends you straight back to try again. Super Billy Boy is a retro pixel platformer set on an uncharted planet, played with the arrow keys and Space. Hidden Object: Clues and Mysteries moves at a gentler pace: a calm detective leads you through living rooms, kitchens and studies in search of clues, and you pan and zoom to look closer.

Platformers and runners break into levels and runs, which makes them easy to fit into a short break. Role-playing and survival games, where you train creatures or gather resources, pay off when you can settle in for a while. Platformers generally play better on a keyboard, while runners are usually steered with swipes or arrow keys. Whichever you pick is free and loads in the browser without a download.