7 Desk Games to Liven up a Slow Day at Work ...

Checkers is a great game to play with co-workers, as just about everyone knows how to play, and if someone doesn’t know, it’s incredibly easy to teach. Checkers is played on a two-color alternating square grid, with each player starting with the same number of identical tokens laid out on the board. Players take turns moving their tokens diagonally, with the option of jumping over their opponent’s tokens if the opportunity arises, thereby capturing that piece. The winner of the game is the last player with tokens on the board. Checkers is both challenging and familiar and is a great game for players of any skill or experience level. It should top your list of games to have on your desk at work.

Another classic game that would be great in a workplace setting is backgammon. Backgammon is a game played with dice and tokens on a square board. Players take turns rolling dice and moving their tokens from their starting point to their finishing point. Meanwhile, their opponent’s starting point is the first player’s finishing point and vice versa, so as you progress your tokens you’re coming into conflict with the movement of your opponent’s. Backgammon combines luck with strategy, for an engaging game that will leave your mind refreshed for the rest of the workday.

If you’re interested in something a little bit more strategic, chess might be the game for you. Chess is played on the same board as a checkers board, but the pieces are varied, and all have different movement abilities. Players take turns moving pieces, and if they manage to land on one of their opponent’s pieces, that piece is captured. The object of chess is to trap one specific piece of your opponent’s, and if that piece has nowhere to move, you win. There’s nothing quite like a good game of chess between evenly matched opponents, and if you manage to find a coworker who rises to the challenge, your games of chess will bring you closer together.

A classic game that’s perfect for a quick timeout during the work day is Connect 4. Connect 4 has a bright and vibrant look and is a quick yet strategic game. Connect 4 consists of a plastic stand in which circular tokens colored either red or black can be dropped, forming a vertical board. The object of the game is to create a horizontal, vertical or diagonal line of four tokens of your color before your opponent manages to make four in a row of his or her tokens. Solving a Connect 4 game can turn around a boring day, and is a great way to have a little moment with a coworker.

No game is faster and simpler in terms of rules than Tic Tac Toe, making it an ideal choice for a quick five-minute reset game. Tic Tac Toe is played on a grid of nine squares, and players take turns marking Xs and Os. The object of the game is to form a line of three Xs or Os, and if neither player succeeds, the game is a tie. Tic Tac Toe is the perfect game if you just need a quick breather before refocusing on the job at hand.

A wonderful option for your office desk is the serpent cube. The serpent cube is a wooden puzzle made up of 27 cubes linked together. The object of the game is to fold all the links of cubes into a 3-by-3 cube. Deceptively simple in theory, the serpent cube is far more difficult than it might seem, and will usually take quite a bit of trial and error to solve. More than one solution exists, so even once you’ve solved it once, the serpent cube still provides additional replay value. The serpent cube is a great example of wooden brain games that can make a day at work fly by.

An attractive-looking and enjoyable office puzzle for your desk is a wooden jigsaw puzzle. Depicting a variety of pleasing illustrations, wooden jigsaws are office desk puzzles that double as both art and an enjoyable game. The wooden pieces can be removed and scrambled, and then the game becomes the process of matching the pieces back into their original order to reform the picture. If you want something for your desk at work that looks great and is a fun little diversion during a boring day, the wooden jigsaw is an outstanding choice.