Vampire Survivors * 1000

2-5 seems super short for anything haha so I am guessing you want to play something where you don't have to think too much. Very chill games where it is easy to just pause and then get back fast to where you left off.

• stardeew valley - you can be super efficient or just super chill about it, the game won't punish you
• I haven't tried bloons td 6 on steam deck because I had finished it before I got my deck (exist as app too) but that would be pretty perfect fit too.
• Cozy grove is exactly maybe 5-15 min per day. It is a bit too slow for my taste because of that. It is a very chill puzzle like game.
• Death doors, very easy to just pause mid game and very nice visual and story. The game is maybe 5 h long if you try to get all of the achievements. But it is a great game none the less
• Moon lighter - rouge like and store management, very chill and all days are pretty much the same so you don't have to be efficient
• monster sanctuary - pokemon but 2d platformer
• Pyre - can pause pretty easy before every challenge. I wouldn't pause mid challenge tho. But you can. Great story and great strategy game
• Ring of pain - rouge like but with cards. Easy to die so one session can be very short if unlucky or maybe that is lucky? 😂
• Spirit farer - great story and can be paused very easily mid game and you can take your time in everything or do it quick and dirty
• Vampire survivors - like others have said
• West of death - rouge like, easy to pause and a pretty brain dead game (not in a bad way)
• the final station - very very easy to jump in and out of. Most station is pretty short so this can be played easily with weeks going by and still just jump in and play. The story is very easy to follow
• katana zero - platformer, very cool and easy to jump in and out of. Short missions so if you don't want a perfect score could you do many bellow 5 min maybe even in 2 min. Pretty short game tho story wise
• legend of keepers - rouge defense. every wave is pretty fast to go through if you have put up your traps and monsters correctly/good enough
• Nitro kid - rouge like but turned based. This one can be both fast and slow depending on your choices

Spider-Man Remastered and Death Stranding are my top ones. Vampire Survivors is an obvious suggestion though.

But Spider-Man and DS hit super different in handheld. I love jumping on Spider-Man swinging around and stopping crime. It's a perfect mindless game imo once you have nothing left to learn. So I just boot up and chill every now and again.

Death Stranding is super unique to me, I have 50 hours in the starting area alone. If you bum rush the story idk if it'd be chill, but when you're in the open world I don't know of another game that's able to just let you feel like running from point to point is engaging. I really enjoy playing this on the SteamDeck while watching TV or a movie. It's like mindless enough but still can be entertaining. And everynow and again you have a BT event that makes you focus up. But it's fun to just do side missions and they are technically never ending in that as soon as you clear out a batch of deliveries you'll get more. I love it.

I have a PS5 and both games on there and I am so much more likely to put a show/movie I want to watch on the tv and boot up either one of those games.

Katamari Damacy and it's sequel We Love Katamari have pretty good remasters on Steam. I wholeheartedly recommend those. Chill vibes, good tunes and tons of dopamine from rolling everything up.

If you want lazy action, I highly recommend a largely ignored gem. Orcs must die 3.

It's nice looking, satisfying as hell, and you can pay as much or as little attention to it as you want.

Here are my go tos if I want to just let my mind wander and not think about what i do:

bullet hells

• vampire survivors
• brotato
• soulstone survivors
• 20 minutes till dawn
• bounty of one

emulated:

• pokemon leaf green/fire red
• zelda BOTW (small chunks possible. Do one shrine, explore a bit. Search for some koroks.) runs beautifully on yuzu

RPG:

• Dark souls 1 Remastered(Because the game practically saves every second or two you are not in any way committed to play a long time)

Any boomer shooter should do the trick, like all of the doom games, dusk, turbo overkill, ultrakill, etc. Their difficulty is flexible too so you can have a challenge or just a vibe with killing whatever is in front of you. Most of these games have an endless mode that works perfectly for small sessions. There's TF2 if you're in a mood for quick online games.

Vampire Survivor and Brotato.

The Binding of Isaac.

Pixross.

Tetris Effect.

Gunfire Reborn.

Spin Rhythm XD.

Bloons TD 6.

Gameboy games on an emulator

Mini Metro / Mini Motorway

I imagine Townscraper would be fun.

For 5 minutes or an hour

Rocket league

Slay the Spire

https://store.steampowered.com/app/646570/Slay_the_Spire/

Also on android and those I phones

Honestly the beauty of the stream deck imo is that a lot of games become great for short play sessions when you have a convenient sleep function.

shapez !
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1318690/shapez

I like playing 2048 if I need to kill time, though I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for.

• American Truck Simulator
• Coffee Talk: Lo-fi visual novel with a lot of dialogue

Actually i'm playing hades on my idle time it's a rogue lite

Old School RuneScape

My go-to is Vampire Survivors! Default runs are 30 minutes long but you can make them as short as 15 iirc all the way to endless. Mindless enough that you can zone out but you can get more involved if you want.

GBA Emulator and the world of retro games is yours

Since you like driving games, Beam NG is great fun for 2-5 minutes of random crashing, or over an hour of fiddling with things to do 2-5 minutes of random crashing.

Haha, I just came to post this! :)