Games

Games occupy an unusual position: they are unambiguously leisure and several of them are also genuinely instructive. What unites the category is structure. A game supplies rules, a goal and an ending, which is why an hour spent on one feels different from an hour spent scrolling, even when both are technically doing nothing useful. Several also improve with repetition in a way that makes the second and third session better than the first, which is not true of most leisure.

These suit you when you want your attention occupied rather than emptied, when other people are around and nobody can decide what to do, or when you want something with a defined ending rather than an open-ended activity. Several work well as company for one person; others need a group and are considerably better for it. A few are portable enough to work in a queue. A defined ending is the underrated feature, because it gives you a natural point to stop rather than drifting onward.

To choose, start with how many people you have. Sudoku, crosswords, jigsaws, chess against a computer, solitaire and GeoGuessr are all solitary and can be picked up and abandoned freely. Charades, word association, twenty questions and board games need at least one other person. Escape rooms and tabletop roleplaying need a group and some planning, and repay both. Games are also one of the few reliable ways to spend an hour with people of very different ages without anybody being bored.

What you need ranges from nothing at all to a specific purchase. Word games, twenty questions and charades need only people. A deck of cards covers card games and solitaire between them and costs very little. Board games, jigsaws and escape rooms cost more, which is why trying before buying, at a café or a library, is worth doing first. Space matters too: jigsaws and board games need a table you can leave undisturbed for longer than one sitting.

Getting started today means matching the game to who is actually in the room. If you are alone, a puzzle or a chess engine starts in seconds. If somebody else is there, a word game needs no setup whatsoever and works immediately. Keep the first session short: games are more inviting when the last one ended while everybody still wanted another round. Libraries and board game cafés both let you try things before committing, which is worth doing before any significant purchase.