My SO and I have been having a lot of fun playing co-op games on the Steam Deck connected to the TV. We recently finished Split Fiction and I’m looking for the next cool experience to try out. We enjoy casual co-op games, nothing too hard or violent. EDIT: pixel art is apparently a big turnoff for her so that’s out as well.
Games We Enjoyed:
- Split Fiction
- It takes two
- Untitled Goose Game
Games that flopped:
- Stardew Valley - She is open to “farming” games but doesn’t enjoy the energy management aspect of the game. It also gave her motion sickness, somehow
- Overcooked / Moving out - We enjoy these games but as they start to get more chaotic and hard, the enjoyment goes way down
- Ibb & Obb - A bit dull and samey
- Portal - Gives me serious motion sickness, completely unplayable
- Lego Lord of the Rings - I’m a lord of the rings fan but I hated the gameplay for this game, I found it to be so boring. We quit after an hour or so.
Unravel 2 :) It’s a beautiful little co-op game with lots of puzzle-y problems to solve and some dynamic ones as well
It went on sale yesterday so I ended up buying it!
Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time
Manage your malfunctioning space ship together while fending off waves of enemies.
Very fun.
Spelunky 1 & 2
Monster Prom, Monster Camp, Monster Roadtrip
Also seconding Kingdom: Two Crowns
OP asks for “nothing too hard” and you recommend spelunky, you absolute monster.
Fortunately I already made that mistake once, a friend recommended me Spelunky 2 as a casual mining game…
If you’re open to doing emulation, there’s a multitude of Nintendo games that are amazing couch co-op.
I have RetroDeck set up but I’m honestly not into emulation. I do own a Nintendo Switch and we’ve played a couple of those. They’re fun but I’m not looking into supporting Nintendo for the time being.
That’s fair. But since you do have a Switch, I’d still recommend finding a used copy of Yoshi’s Crafted World if you haven’t played it.
My gf is pretty new to video games but these are a few she enjoyed
Trine 2/3
Snippets
Castle crashers
Unravelled
Diablo 3
Children of morta - my gf also doesn’t really like pixel art but this turned out to be one of her favourite games
We just started the spiritfarer. Absolutely worth it
I already played and loved SpiritFarer, it was an amazing journey. I don’t want to say too much but I just can’t repeat it any time soon.
I’m a fan of taking turns “driving” for slower paced logic or puzzle games. Titles that come to mind:
- Myst
- Curse of the Golden Idol
- Summertime Madness
- Chants of Sennar
- Superliminal
- Viewfinder
- Baba is You
I can highly recommend all of these as they almost universally benefit from more minds working on them together. I would say Baba is the only one that gets REALLY challenging, but there are good mind and logic bending puzzles throughout them all!
EDIT: I’ll also add that Myst, Golden Idol, and Chants of Sennar (Summertime Madness maybe a little) all benefit from solid note taking and map making This provides a great job for the “copilot” while the other person is managing the actual input device.
Obra dinn too
Oooohhhh yes!!! I haven’t gotten to play it yet which is why I forgot it! It’s on my list!!
No game makes me feel more like a complete idiot than Baba is You. Great game though.
Yeah, it’s a game I chip away at. I’m at a point in it that the levels often take hours and/or multiple sittings to work out.
A way out. Two criminals escaping prison, made by the Same studio as it takes two and split fiction. Full of mini games along the way like the other two and my god the story made me laugh with it’s ridiculousness. it’s definitely not as good as it takes two or split fiction but well worth a go imo
The steam deck status is unfortunately unsupported. Otherwise it would be a great fit.
In case you’re comfortable trying a couple things out it does work for some on steam deck. ProtonDB link
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I’ve had motion sickness ever since I remember. I just can’t play shooters, it’s physically impossible for me.
Somethings help like a TV instead of a monitor, zooming out as much as possible, moving as further from tv as possible, low camera speed. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s a struggle.
Often it’s reported that a larger and/or brighter crosshair helps. Maybe try an overlay with a large neon pink crosshair or a piece of clear tape with a big dot of marker on it sometime? I get it’s probably not a problem that you are interested in putting time into solving any more though.
Some games don’t even have crosshairs… Another big offender was Spyro, for instance. Just the camera moving was enough to make me sick in the stomach.
Yeah my post was about adding one that is big and bright even to games that have one
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I have not. I have a 144hz monitor and even at 144fps games games with heavy camera movement are unplayable.
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Degrees of Seperation - 2D puzzler with wonderful scenes and visuals
Heavenly Bodies - 2D puzzler about astronauts and 0 gravity environments
Unrailed - isometric 3D. A train starts driving and you need to gather resources and build tracks etc.
Wobbly Life - 3D fun game, no real objective, just many quests and activities throughout the world
… Genital Jousting.
Like, doing it or playing it?
Yes
The cult of the lamb
I’m not even a huge platformer guy, but Rayman Legends is absolute peak and a fantastic, chill co-op game. The music levels in particular - where the already great soundtrack is synced in time to your jumps and hits - are incredibly satisfying and so well made.
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t suggest Blue Prince. It’s not co-op per se as it’d only be one person at a time “driving”, but the game is about puzzle solving so who holds the controller doesn’t really matter. It’s a fantastic game if you enjoy puzzles and escape rooms. My sister isn’t even a gamer at all but I recommended it to her fiancé and they’ve been playing together and even she’s been enjoying it a lot. From my own experience playing it on my own I also think it would be much more fun if playing alongside someone else. I’ve often missed having someone to bounce ideas off when stuck.
On the notion of “one person at a time driving,” I played Outer Wilds with my partner. 10/10. Just make sure that when there is text, both people can read it before you move on.
If you enjoy escape rooms try out Escape Academy, haven’t seen anyone mention it but it’s really a blast!
One of my favorite games to play with my SO is Out of Space the vibe is very similar to Overcooked but it’s procedurally generated and a lot more chilled out, i.e. less chaos.
