My partner and I occasionally play games together, but they pretty much only play word puzzle games on their own. I’m not very good at word games though, and they don’t have very good spatial skills, so we frequently find ourselves mismatched. We have a switch and a single decent gaming pc, and a pretty old laptop.
The biggest hit for us has been Baba is You because it is slow paced, and combines words and logic and spatial reasoning. Our biggest problem was that its not actually coop, so we would just alternate who played, which can disengage the other person. My partner also thought its aesthetic is cute.
Our next positive example is probably Snipperclips is also a pretty slow paced puzzler, is mostly spatial skills, but we could play at the same time. They also liked how interactive the avatars are, and particularly snipping my avatar up.
The first miss is overcooked, it was a bit too chaotic, and my partner felt a little lost and uncoordinated. They don’t remember it super well, so we might retry this one at some point if they feel more at home playing video games.
The other miss is Mario Kart, which they liked when we played with 4 player, but not just the 2 of us. I’m significantly better at Mario Kart, and they are pretty competitive. If they get more into games they might be willing to put in some time improving, but not so much right now.
Our worst miss was probably Tricky Towers, I’m decently good at regular Tetris, so I can do okay out of the box at physics based Tetris, but there was too much happening to fast for my partner. Combine that with it the competitive aspect and they didn’t enjoy this one at all.
The games they most fondly remember from childhood are Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero, though we have downstairs neighbors under part of our apartment and no dance pad or guitars, SSX Tricky, and the Lord of the Rings movie tie in games.
They think they’d enjoy a game that does movement as input like ddr or guitar hero but is maybe less bouncy, and are open to action games, or games with a story, but they should be easier to control and not be too chaotic. Cute aesthetics and cats are a plus.
Thanks!
Edit: Everybody gave great recommendations! We picked up It takes two and pizza possum. Just finished the first chapter of it takes two and we had a blast, and I might even be able to get another game night in this weekend if we can be on top of chores. I’ll keep checking in this thread for more ideas for future games to try! Thanks again!
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“It Takes Two”, check it out.
I also recommend this game as one of the best co-op / split screen games I’ve played.
My wife and I loved that.
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime - coop, a bit actiony but less chaotic than Overcooked. Beautiful and cute artstyle.
This was my first thought too. Highly recommend.
Fantastic game, my family has been playing it for years on Switch, starting from when my kids were uselessly young, to now that they are pretty good gamers and it has always been fun. One of the few games my wife plays with everyone.
I think this is one we’ll check out. I bounced off it a few years ago, but I think that was because I played it in a party where I was more interested in just hanging out and catching up with the other players.
Stardew valley
This didn’t really work for us to be honest. It went a little better than most games, but it was too easy to get separated and do your own thing and it just didn’t really feel like we were playing together. Could be a strength, but I don’t think it’s ideal if your partner doesn’t really like video games haha.
Try out It takes two
Overcooked is only fun if everyone is terrible or everyone is great. It’s a great concept but definitely not going to work out for most groups.
For Mario kart, did you put on some bots? Without the NPCs, 2 player is lame, even if you are both quite good.
Have you played It Takes Two? This sounds like it hits your requirements.
For couch coop, I’d actually suggest Mario Deluxe over the very recent Mario Wonder if you wanted to try a side scroller. Wonder is great, but it’s couch coop is poorly implemented unless you are both good or both terrible as with overcooked. Deluxe doesn’t have that issue, in my opinion, due to the way the scrolling works in game. It might feel odd spending $60 on a 10 year old game from the WII U, but Nintendo originals always hold up well.
I think they struggled to even parse what was going on in overcooked, and need more experience playing games generally to be able to enjoy that kind of chaos because they just felt lost.
Alas, beating bots on Mario Kart means nothing to them.
That’s 2 fast recs for it takes two, so I think thats probably gonna be on the shortlist.
I think I have NSMBU on wii u in storage at my parent’s house. We’re visiting in for the holidays, so maybe we’ll hook up the wii u there and try that. I remember liking that game a lot.
Thanks!
My partner and I like to play the Lego games together. Lego Star Wars (2005ish) was a favorite, but the newer ones are fun too.
I could probably sell them on lego lotr, adding this one to the list!
Thanks!
Lego Harry Potter on Switch is what my wife and I did and she liked it. She is not a gamer.
Weirdly enough she also liked Mario Golf on switch.
I second the Lego games. Although the older ones (Complete Saga) & Lego Indiana Jones were annoying to play COOP because there’s no split screen.
But Lego Star Wars Clonewars has split screen so you don’t get in the way of each other. I haven’t actually played other newer Lego games but I assume they will have split screen as well.
In our world, the lack of split screen was a feature. It was less co-op as in play together, and more like play as a team. We enjoy fighting about meaningless stuff like whether to collect studs or whether to hurry along. I’d imagine if I tried playing with a sibling, there would be blood.
For me I just found it annoying that whenever we wanted to go in different directions one player would end up getting dragged back by the camera border. So many failed jumps…
But that’s fair, if someone thinks that being able to get in the way of each other and being forced to cooperate better due to it adds to their enjoyment of the game then playing the games without split screen could be preferable.
I just never considered that possibility.
Portal 2 has a coop mode which I hear is great. I adore portal 1 and 2, but never got a chance to try coop.
Can confirm, the portal 2 coop is fantastic.
I liked the portal games a lot, but they might be abit too spatial heavy for my partner, so I’m a little worried they’d disengage.
Thanks!
My wife is not very spatial, but enjoyed playing coop Portal 2, for a little bit. Once we got to the stage where I was just telling her where to go or stand the entire time we stopped playing together.
That’s about what I would expect would happen with us too. Its already in my steam library tho, so we may try it.
My partner had a hard time dealing with FPS movement. Throwing in portals just made it a complete mess. It really wasn’t a good jumping off point, I think it’s good to be weary.
The Trine series is pretty fun. It’s a 2.5d puzzle platformer game. There are some combat bits, but most of the game is puzzles. I’d recommend the second one.
I have Trine 2 in the depths of my unplayed steam library, so this is a great option!
Thanks!
A lot of people have mentioned It takes Two, which really is great and you get to try many different mechanics.
You can also check out Fling or Keywe on steam. Only 2 players max (as compared to 4 players on Overcooked or Plate Up), but less complicated controls. Bread & Fred is another I’ve been meaning to check out too.
Unrailed has simple controls but more objectives to accomplish, and Out Of Space is similar to Overcooked but not in a cooking setting.
Edit: Didn’t realise I used a shortened name. Fling refers to ‘Fling to the Finish’
I’ve played it takes two with my partner and kinda got a little complicated around and after the first boss, definitely gonna give KeyWe a shot! Work our way up to it takes two again
I found this really difficult to read/understand this in places with the neutral pronouns. Anyway a cool little coop puzzle game is Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. It’s an asymmetrical puzzle game where one of you is trying to defuse a bomb (played on a computer) while the other is trying to give directions without seeing the bomb. It might fit your asymmetrical needs you described.
Every “they” refers to the partner (the first two words of the post). Shouldn’t take too long to get used to in future.
As a non-native speaker I still struggle with it. Just sounds like plural all the time. I’d expect something like “they does” for an individual and “they do” for a group of people but “they do” for just an individual frequently fucks up my comprehension.
The post we’re looking at includes “my partner” then almost immediately after “they”, with consistent conjugations of the verb (which doesn’t change). It can look a little odd and take some getting used to, but it isn’t far removed from other seemingly irregular uses, such as yous/youse/y’all for addressing a group of people (direct form of ‘they’), instead of using the singular ‘you’.
My partner was never really into games growing up, and especially had trouble with the spatial aspect and controllers.
The tipping point came when we played Minecraft together and they got to use a keyboard and mouse rather than a controller. Since then, they’ve done tons gaming on their own with hundreds of hours in Stardew Valley and a more recently a deep dive into Fallout 4.
Destiny 2 played a big part in learning shooting mechanics, sense of space, and especially precision platforming.
Thrilled to see that you’ve found and enjoyed It Takes Two because that’s our all-time favorite co-op game and we recommend it to everybody.
Since yours is into puzzling, I want to second the recommendation for the We Were Here series. The first one is free and each is better than the next. It’s an asymmetrical puzzler that requires two computers with each player unable to see the other’s screen. Communication is critical to solve each of the puzzles.
It Takes Two is probably the best jumping off point (as you’ve already been informed). It has enough variety that you can discuss what parts they liked and maybe find the games in that kind of genre.
My partner isn’t big on games, but loves The Binding of Isaac for coop. The latest DLC adds a better coop mode, but the original coop mode with coop babies works well too (and there’s advantages like them being able to fly so they don’t need to worry about floor hazards). I think the fact that they grew up in a catholic household but aren’t religious helped them get into it lol.
It takes two is the obvious suggestion, and I’d personally also recommend vampire survivors
I have been recommending Farm Together as a co-op game a lot lately because it is so damn simple but so good. The controls are immediately accessible, the game doesn’t give a flying fuck about stressing you out but at the same time there are a lot of systems to discover (making money isn’t trivial in this game) and the crops take realtime to grow so it naturally sets up a simple ritual with your co-op partner to play. There is not really any story to get into, but at the same time this makes it a bit more accessible to someone who isn’t already invested in video games since the gameplay loop is so immediate and unframed by any cutscenes, story setup, long tutorials or forced activities. You pick it up and start playing immediately, you decide completely how to interface with the game whether it be crunching out the numbers to figure out which crop, fish etc… to go for to maximize money, just zoning out watering, planting and harvesting or spending all your time placing cosmetic buildings and props to make your farm look cool. Want to take a break and just watch your partner play? Sure! Walk away for a half an hour if you want, you will probably have a bunch of crops waiting for you to harvest once you come back. The game really doesn’t have an opinion on how you should play it and it is great.
(It looks like a game like farmville, but there is zero manipulative microtransaction crap, just buy the game and play)
If you want more story and thematic framing, you absolutely have to try Stardew Valley, it is a co-op classic for a reason.
Also if you liked the idea of Overcooked but found it too focused on stressful energy that isn’t necessarily fun for everyone than check out PlateUp! YOU design the kitchen in plateup and add various components to it as you progress. It puts a lot more agency in the players hands instead of throwing players through a chaotic theme park ride that overcooked feels like in the harder levels. It also brings strategizing about kitchen design with your co-op partner into the gameplay loop which is great fun. You can also automate some stuff, so players can dig into that if they want to avoid feeling like the game is so focused on stressful action.
Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2. It’s not on the switch, but I’m guessing it should run fine on your old laptop since D:OS1 came out in 2014. My wife and I love these games since she isn’t very good with fast action, and these are turn based fighting so she can take her time figuring out what to do to whom.
It’s also got great couch co-op.
Dos2 is on switch
Yep, my partner also did not enjoy the “misses” on his list, but we had a blast playing divinity original sins 1 & 2. Now we are 100 hours into Baldurs gate 3. I highly recommend these games for couples.
Surprisingly, though, while more fast paced, she did also really enjoy It Takes Two. It is a game that does try to be a bit accessible for the new player.
