Over the past four weeks, a huge amount of my life has been taken up by a medical procedure known as dilation. The procedure requires me to insert a perspex rod between my legs and then just kind of lie on my bed holding it in place for a while. It’s uncomfortable, it’s time-consuming, and it’s very tough to find video games I can play one-handed while lying on my back.

Considering it has been a huge daily time sink for the past month, I’ve decided to run down some of the games I’ve been playing while unable to use one of my hands.

Monument Valley

Released a few years ago to critical acclaim, I’ve been playing Monument Valley recently while dilating and found it’s a beautiful, calming, polished puzzle game that’s playable one-handed. There’s also no requirement to use motion controls to play on mobile.

You play as a silent princess with the ability to rotate the screen’s perspective and parts of the geometry in order to traverse seemingly impossible 3D spaces. Many of the rules of real world traversability are thrown out the window in favour of using anything that looks like it’s connected as a viable path.

The non-time-sensitive nature of gameplay, as well as the beautifully relaxing visuals and soundtrack, make it perfect for whiling away some time during dilation.

Phoenix Wright (Mobile)

When the Phoenix Wright court room drama games first released well over a decade ago, I lapped up the first couple on the DS very, very quickly. They were engagingly written, dramatic in their plots, and provided a fun level of mental challenge to complete.

The problem is, a DS or 3DS isn’t terribly easy to play one-handed.

With the release of the Phoenix Wright games on mobile, I’ve had an opportunity to revisit them on a device more suited to holding and operating one-handed.

Having complex plots to focus on and cliffhangers that take some of the edge off of having to go back and dilate again later has made Phoenix Wright a reliable distraction.

I just have to remember not to dramatically throw my hands in the air while shouting OBJECTION!!! at the screen.

Hitman Go

Oh hey, look, it’s a games critic talking about a game with Go in the title that isn’t about walking around outside in the wide open world. What a surprise.

Hitman Go takes a real-time stealth assassination formula and turns it to a turn based, top down board game-style interpretation of the same core experience. The fact the formula has been reduced to a turn based format means I have time to take breaks from the game if needed to rearrange things with both hands for a moment.

It’s an incredibly polished experience, which is very effective at single-handedly assassinating my dilation time.

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So, that’s the games I have been playing while lying down one-handed. What games can you recommend for while there’s a hand between my legs?