Games with 30 mins-1 hour runs

[ColCol]

Roguelikes are the obvious choice, but I'll take any suggestions (like ten minute space strategy) for games that offer a self-contained run that can be finished around an hour or less.

 

[crazyirish]

Lost Labyrinth is particularly good for such short runs.

 

[Kane]

any rts

 

[LeStryfe79]

Pinball.

 

[Nutmeg]

Try playing turn based classics on small maps: Master of Orion, Civilization, Heroes etc.

 

[deuxhero]

Way of the Samurai has a few routes you could easily do in an hour if you know what you are doing. Each game have about 6 main endings with a handful of variants each and there are a bunch of sidequests, figuring out how to get each ending and a few dead ends (though it's pretty hard to screw yourself out of ANY ending) on top of it

 

[Damned Registrations]

any rts

If you can beat AI Wars in 1 hour on any real difficulty/size setting you probably belong in some sort of sci-fi minority report vat predicting the future.

Doom RL is kind of doable in 1 hour (there are speedrunning medals for as quick as 15 minutes iirc) if you're relatively competent and not trying to 100% it or anything.

Desktop Dungeons is divided into nice slices that are probably around ~1 hour each.

 

[Astral Rag]

The Carmageddon games. Racing games/ sims in general actually, just set the "correct" number of laps.
Q3A and UT with time limit.

 

[Cadmus]

I've been playing Age of Empires 3 lately and if you don't turtle up, the maps last 20-40 mins on average and it's really fun.
The second one is obviously any Dota, especially LoL's ARAM mode.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Most of fighting games / beat'em ups.

 

[J_C]

Every game where you can manually save.

 

[Ulminati]

Hearthstone

 

[Norfleet]

Any number of various match-based games where you typically murder your opponent (or get murdered, because you didn't git gud) in anything from seconds to minutes will do.

 

[Melan]

Lost Labyrinth is particularly good for such short runs.

I can second this. LL is excellent for a quick gaming fix, and the different character builds keep it from getting stale too soon.

Hotline Miami is also good for a few minutes of refreshing, senseless slaughter.

 

[Markman]

Anything arcadish, bro.
Platformers, racing, puzzle games etc.
I derp with pinball, Trials series, sometimes Race the Sun, Luftrausers, One Finger Death Punch etc when I want to play something good under a short period of time.

 

[Mofleaker]

Iter Vehemens Ad Necem is what I play when I want to kill an hour or so. Though your first few runs will end in ~5 minutes.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Binding of Isaac

 

[No Great Name]

The first Super Mario Bros. on the NES.

 

[Metro]

Weird Worlds.

 

[Matalarata]

The Order: 1886, once you figure out how to skip the cutscenes...

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Alter Ego, Sword of the Samurai, NWC's Nuclear War, Die Hard (NES), every arcade game ever.

 

[Gregz]

Fire up MAME or a NES emulator and take your pick of thousands of games.

 

[Coyote]

 

[Gragt]

The Immortal. You’ll die in a couple of minutes anyway.

 

[Lilura]

Fire up MAME or a NES emulator and take your pick of thousands of games.

This. Many SHMUPS, beat em ups, versus fighters, platformers, puzzle can be played through in 30 mins to 1 hour.