Best mobile games for a five-minute window

Not every gaming session is an evening on the sofa. Sometimes you've got five minutes and a dead moment to fill, and the worst thing a game can do is punish you for playing briefly.

The best candidates have clear stopping points. Arcade racers with lap-based time trials, like Neon Dash Circuit, are perfect — one lap, one go, done. So are adventure games built from short rooms, which is exactly why Casinacho Games became a staple of my commute.

Avoid anything that locks you into long, unskippable sequences for this slot. There's nothing worse than hearing your stop announced during a cutscene you can't pause. Save the story-heavy RPGs for when you've got time to breathe.

My rule of thumb: if a game lets me quit cleanly within a minute of opening it, it earns a permanent spot on my home screen. Respect for my time is a feature, and I rank it highly.