Split-screen co-op games needed

[HoloDust]

SvennoJ said:

HoloDust said:

Yeah, I feel you, my wife has problems with serious lack of gamepad skills as well - even something not so taxing like Trine was, at times, too much for her.

That's, more or less, THE reason why we play so few video games together and spend most of our gameplay time either with boardgames or Pen&Paper RPGs (though getting her to GM/DM is a challenge on its own).

It Takes Two is still a hit, but beware the controls change during the game. It has different kinds of game styles (copying all the good ones at least) even a BG Dark Alliance section, top down with both on the same screen. I had to go into system accessibility options once for a boss fight since my L3 to sprint does not work for my wife. Swapping L1 (not used in the game) with L3 worked. She still often ground pounds when she wants to dash and vice versa. We get there in the end.

One level to look out for if you have/had migraines is the kaleidoscope level. We had to look away from the screen, too bright and the 'tears' effect looks too much like the onset of a migraine doh. Luckily that was just a short level. And luckily only one has to stay alive to keep going while the other quickly revives and 'death' is never far back. It ticks all the boxes apart from some needed accessibility settings in game.

We played Trine back on PS3, that was taxing as well. I finished that by myself and hated the end... Too frustrating. Our favorite board game was Settlers with lots of expansions. We kinda stopped playing board games once we got kids. First the danger of the baby/toddler getting the small pieces, then they wanted to play as well of course but something easier. So now we play Sorry, Battleship and Mario Checkers :/

I played AD&D with friends in university, never with my wife. We actually met in Everquest and later moved on to WoW before time became too constrained to keep on going with mmorpgs. We would love to go back to Everquest, but maybe it's better to just leave it at nostalgia. Perhaps after the kids move out we can try that again. The game is still going since '99, can it make another 7-8 years :)

Anyway It Takes Tow is the best co-op game we've played in a long time.

Yeah, my wife's oldest son bought It Takes Two specifically to play it with her, but he massively overestimated her gamepad skills...she really liked the idea, but was pretty much unable to play it...I guess I could try to install a few walking sims or such less stressful games and see if she'll get better in time.

Depending on your kids' age, there are plenty of games out there to play with them...I've dropped mine right into Settlers and Ticket to Ride when they were around 6-7, and they caught on fairly easy…not that I would recommend either game from my current POV, they are too long for such age (Ticket to Ride London/New York is a condensed version of TTR, which runs for about 20-25 minutes, so I would easily recommend that, or for even lighter game Ticket to Ride: First Journey US/Europe, which is kid's version of TTR).

I'm not so up to date on what's good for very young kids these days (I have heard of Dragomino, Rhino Hero, Karak, Brandon the Brave, Icecool, Zombie Kids Evolution and few others, but have no experience with any of them), but if you have time (and interest), BGG list is great jump off point:

https://boardgamegeek.com/childrensgames/browse/boardgame?sort=rank&sortdir=asc

As for P&P RPGs (my roots are in AD&D as well, played it back in 80s) I got my wife hooked on them a few years ago with DnD 5e, though she never played anything like that in her life and was somewhat reluctant at first (and now she likes to play elf wizard exclusively, which is a problem on its own, since we moved away from DnD) and I started with my kids when they were around 4-5 years old with Hero Kids, which has very simple resolution system of comparing D6 dice, which is quite easy even for very young kids if you use dice with pips (plus pdf comes with grid maps and standees)....so maybe you can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/106605/Hero-Kids--Fantasy-RPG