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.
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Cult of the Lamb maybe?
I think the combat portion of the game would be a big turnoff for her. I do own the game so it doesn’t cost anything to try it.
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.
My wife and I were having fun doing co-op on the Trine games. Coordinating your character switches to cross obstacles can be pretty fun. The Lego Star Wars games were also fun for us both to just mess around and cause chaos.
Lego Star Wars are quite bad for motion sickness, I find.
Trine sounds like a great idea, I already have the first two. Gonna give it a go.
We tried the lego lord of the rings game but it fell flat for us.
crawl, rounds, ship of fools, pico park (better with a large group), risk of rain returns (2 would also be good except that it doesn’t actually support local multiplayer, only online).
If you like puzzle games, you might try a game that’s not technically multiplayer but that the two of you can work on solving together, which is what my wife and I do. Good candidates for that are Case/Rise of the Golden Idol, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, and we’re currently playing Blue Prince.
Baba Is You belongs to the same category. One of my favorite puzzles.
I have Baba Is You! It’s a brilliant game, love it to pieces, but it’s not a good fit for my SO. She’d lose interest very fast, looking for something more chill and casual.
Blue Prince is definitely something I’ve been considering but I’m unsure if she’d enjoy games that are just puzzles. Pretty sure Lorelei is just too thinky for her to enjoy.
Definitely looking into more chill games to blow off some steam.
I’d say check out Case of the Golden Idol on a deep sale to test the waters. Lorelei is definitely hard mode if you’re not sure if this is something you’d want, but we found that having two people to approach solving the puzzles helped a lot.
Ballers gate 3? Pretty sure that runs on. Steam deck.
It’s only just playable on the Steam Deck. I really wouldn’t expect it to perform to a satisfactory standard rendering two scenes at once in split-screen.
It’s verified
Would be great if you updated this post with new games you enjoyed 😊
If you’re open to doing emulation, there’s a multitude of Nintendo games that are amazing couch co-op.
Any suggestions?
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Super Mario Wonder
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.
Ship of Fools is -60% on steam right now and I can’t recommend this game enough. It’s a rogue lite where you both need to protect a ship from monsters maning the cannons and it’s an absolute blast! It has good progression and it’s intense but not in annoying sort of way.
It looks sick, definitely something I’d enjoy playing. Unfortunately I feel like it would fall under the same umbrella as Overcooked or Moving Out. Too chaotic, I think.
Its much more approachable and not nearly as frustrating or difficult as those. We finished the game while being stoned if that tells you anything lol
Keep talking and nobody explodes could be a fun one, only needs 1 device and the other player needs the manual which can be on a phone or printed out. You could even play it over a phone call.
You know I have like 4 manuals printed and only played it once? Gotta give it a try some time!!
As I recall, the ‘campaign’ gets impossible to do with two players because of the inability to look up enough stuff in parallel. There are mods and custom bombs though.
Might do but you can always go until you find it too hard and then go back to one that you like, or use custom to set a difficulty that you like.
Also tried playing it with extra people before, so far just 3, 1 with the bomb and 2 with manuals. But playing with a few more could also be fun, maybe even set them up with a phone each and stick each team in a different room.
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.
… Genital Jousting.
Like, doing it or playing it?
Yes
Blur…from archive.org
Death Squared. Puzzle solving, each player controls two blocks on the map used to solve the puzzle.
