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Four games that need no installer
for the hours the lacquer is drying

Lacquer dries at its own speed and a rack of wet blanks will not be rushed, which leaves plenty of time in this building with nothing to do but wait. These four free-to-play games fill it honestly: not one wants an installer, a launcher or a patch, so you open a tab, register, and you are playing within a minute. Between them you get an empire with real sieges, a hero levelling through zones, a garden on a clock and a shelf of jigsaws that asks nothing of you at all.

Imperia Online key art
01 · Medieval empire MMO

Imperia Online

Found a village, push the economic, military and university buildings up in real time, then take catapults and trebuchets to somebody who did it worse. Beaten players can be made vassals rather than simply ruined, which is a sentence most games in this genre never have to write.

Good for
Strategists who want winning to mean something afterwards.
Typical session
Twenty minutes a day
Where it runs
Desktop browser; mobile app also available
Cost
Free to play; optional in-game purchases.
Your first session
  1. Push the economy well past the point where it feels dull; armies are paid for out of it.
  2. Scout before committing a siege train, because rebuilding one takes days.
  3. Join an alliance early and say plainly what hours you are actually around.
Play Imperia Online freeOpens imperiaonline.org in a new tab
Fallen Sword key art
02 · Classic levelling RPG

Fallen Sword

Zones full of monsters from snowfields to lava flats, levels earned one at a time, and professions — blacksmithing, alchemy — that give the climb somewhere to go. The surprise is the economy around buffs and the auction house, which is livelier than the plain interface suggests.

Good for
Players who like a straightforward climb with real depth under it.
Typical session
Fifteen minutes, or an evening
Where it runs
Desktop browser; mobile app also available
Cost
Free to play; optional in-game purchases.
Your first session
  1. Pick one profession and stay with it; splitting early leaves you good at neither.
  2. Check the buff market before a long hunt, since the right buff doubles what you clear.
  3. Hunt in the zone just above your level rather than the one that feels safe.
Play Fallen Sword freeOpens fallensword.com in a new tab
Molehill Empire 2 key art
03 · Gardening sim

Molehill Empire 2

Beds planted, watered and lifted on the clock, with orders coming in for particular things. The pleasure is arriving at the right minute with the right crate rather than building anything large, and the plot spreads quietly as the crops unlock.

Good for
Gardeners who like short visits with a reason behind them.
Typical session
Several small visits a day
Where it runs
Desktop browser; mobile app also available
Cost
Free to play; optional in-game purchases.
Your first session
  1. Plant crops whose timers land near when you expect to be back at the desk.
  2. Clear the orders before expanding; they pay for the next bed far faster than selling does.
  3. Water everything before closing the tab, because that is what a missed hour actually costs.
Play Molehill Empire 2 freeOpens molehillempire2.upjers.com/en in a new tab
Jigsaw Planet key art
04 · Online jigsaws

Jigsaw Planet

A free library of jigsaws you can play without signing up for anything. Choose the piece count and the cut shape, drag and rotate against a timer if you fancy one, and upload your own photograph when you want a puzzle nobody else has done.

Good for
Anyone who wants a quiet twenty minutes with no account and no stakes.
Typical session
Twenty minutes
Where it runs
Desktop browser
Cost
Free to play; optional in-game purchases.
Your first session
  1. Start at a lower piece count than pride suggests; the jump to 200 is steeper than it looks.
  2. Turn rotation off for a gentler puzzle and on when you want it to take a while.
  3. Upload a photograph with plenty of detail, because flat skies are miserable to assemble.
Play Jigsaw Planet freeOpens jigsawplanet.com in a new tab

Four tabs compared at a glance

Imperia OnlineFallen SwordMolehill Empire 2Jigsaw Planet
GenreMedieval empire MMOClassic levelling RPGGardening simOnline jigsaws
PaceReal time, daily attentionAs much as you give itShort visits around harvest timesAs long or as short as you like
Playing with othersAlliances, vassals and siegesDuels, auctions and a buff marketTrade between gardenersNone at all, by design
Typical sessionTwenty minutes a dayFifteen minutes, or an eveningSeveral small visits a dayTwenty minutes
Where it runsDesktop browser; mobile app also availableDesktop browser; mobile app also availableDesktop browser; mobile app also availableDesktop browser
CostFree to play; optional in-game purchases.Free to play; optional in-game purchases.Free to play; optional in-game purchases.Free to play; optional in-game purchases.

What no download actually means

Nothing is installed. All four run inside the browser already on the machine, which is why a borrowed laptop or a locked-down work computer is usually no obstacle at all.

Three of the four keep a shop inside the game, selling premium currency, ornaments and timer skips. None of it is needed to play properly. Where a computer is shared with children, set the spending controls on the studio account before handing it over.

The first quarter of an hour

Follow the link under any game and the studio’s own site opens in a fresh tab. Register there, usually with an email address and a password, and the world loads a moment later. The jigsaw library skips even that.

Give the opening tutorial your attention on that first visit. The three bigger games introduce resources, timers and other players in a deliberate order, and skipping ahead means relearning it clumsily a week later.

Fitting one around a working day

Three of these keep their own time. Buildings finish, beds ripen and auctions close whether the tab is open or not, which makes two short visits a day a perfectly respectable way to play.

Save the real decisions — a siege, a profession rebuild, a new row of beds — for an evening when you are not watching the clock.

Looking after four separate logins

Every account belongs to its own studio and never to us, so type the password only on that studio’s own pages. Give each game its own password and switch on any second sign-in step offered.

No real member of a support team will ever ask for a password in a game chat, a forum reply or an email. Anyone promising free premium currency for a login is after the account itself.

Why these four stay in the bookmarks bar

  • Not one of them has an installer or a launcher. The browser already on the machine is the whole requirement.
  • Registering is free everywhere, and one of the four does not even ask for that; the shops inside sell shortcuts and ornament, never entry.
  • Three of them carry on with the tab shut, so a five-minute look still moves something along.
  • Each has run for years under a studio that still updates it, and there are people online at most hours.

None at all. All four open in an ordinary desktop browser and start the moment you have registered, with no launcher and no patching to sit through.

No. Registering and playing are free in every case, and each shop holds optional extras rather than anything that gates the game itself.

They are not. Four separate studios build and run them, and our buttons simply open each official site so you can register there.

No, and one of them needs no login whatever. Expect three registrations and three passwords.

Imperia Online, Fallen Sword and Molehill Empire 2 each publish a phone app besides the browser build. The jigsaw library has no app and reads perfectly well on a tablet screen anyway.

Jigsaw Planet, because it asks for nothing at all. Molehill Empire 2 if you would rather have something growing while you are away.

In three of them, yes: buildings finish, beds ripen and auctions close regardless. The jigsaw library is the exception, and that is rather the point of it.