site banner

Friday Fun Thread for September 15, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I need a co-op game to play with my son.

My son has finally started gaming. He's always loved watching Dead Cells gameplay videos and is having an absolute blast now running and jumping through the levels himself. The combat is too complex for him, but he's still enjoying the game a lot. While I enjoy the resulting peace and quiet myself, I kinda want to play together with him, especially since he's not good at other forms of play.

So, I'm looking for a casual 2D platformer with good graphics that supports co-op play. I have never played anything other than single player, so I have no idea if some game like that even exists.

Yoshi's Crafted World has a great co-op mode. My son and I played it a lot when he was around 4, and he then moved onto just playing by himself. There are also good Kirby co-op games, like Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Basically, a Nintendo Switch is going to get you pretty far.

Oh yeah, and if you like crafted world definitely check out Kirby's epic yarn. Like crafted world, epic yarn is a fantastic platformer even if you don't like outrageous cuteness everywhere - in both games the controls are almost as tight as super meat boy, the level design is constantly surprising without being jarring and the gimmicks stay fresh from start to finish. Depending on how you define a game though, epic yarn might fall short - there's no real fail state.

Try Elden Ring

Yeah, right, or Battletoads.

character development > having fun

My friend's 5 year old loved TMNT:Shredder's Revenge, and it's nostalgic for millennials.

Thanks, I'll try it. I've never been a fan of beat-'em-ups, but perhaps it might work.

Epic Megagames’ Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Party Mode. Gameplay video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=C8oXr-lsrqs

Mario! Galaxy or Odyssey - both have co-op, and in both games it was designed for precisely your situation. The second player isn't another mario or luigi, instead they play a little sidekick guy - a star in galaxy and a hat in odyssey. Their character can't die, but they can collect things, control the camera and attack monsters. So you start off with you playing as mario and your lad playing as the hat, and once he's gotten the hang of playing switch roles, so you can help him out when he's having trouble. The Lego games are good to play with kids too, they are also quite forgiving.

Oh, this does sound just like what we need, thank you! I'll try them out.

I'm usually not big on platformers.

But Terraria, was a 2D co-op game I loved. It's a bit of a mix of a platformer, survival game, crafting game, builder, tower defense, and RPG.

Thanks for the suggestiion, I also loved Terraria and played through it several times, but it's too complex mechanically and probably also too simplistic graphically for my son.

Seconding Trine. That game is basically made for coop.

Is it worth skipping Trine 1? My youngest kid loves that one, but her siblings don't, so she rarely gets to play. Is Trine 2 enough of an upgrade that non fans of the first might enjoy it?

I feel fairly confident that the exact game you are looking for is Rampage Knights - it's an absolute blast in co-op, with great humor and fairly simple combat that retains all the great roguelike elements of Dead Cells.

Another strong candidate in the vein you describe is Enter the Gungeon. Again, the co-op here has everything you're looking for, but I will note that camera management is a bit more of a pain point than in a game like Dead Cells or Rampage Knights because of the top-down viewpoint.

You can't go wrong with either of these games, and if your son likes Dead Cells, he'll love these too.

Pushing back a bit on Gungeon. I've been playing it a lot with my fiance and although we have a lot of fun, in some ways it's actually more difficult than single player (for me) because she's not very good, which means she dies a lot. This means she spends a decent amount of time as a ghost and not a normal player, and also the way to resurrect a dead ally is by using a chest. Although it doesn't cost a key, it also uses up the chest so you don't get a weapon from it, meaning by the late game after she's died and been resurrected 4-5 times we are significantly underpowered.

OP does not specify the precise age of his son, but it's implied to be young, so I suspect the kid would spend the majority of time as a ghost given the difficult gameplay. There are easier co-op games out there.

Very fair point, Gungeon might be a bit high up the difficulty ladder for a child.

Thanks, I'll try Rampage Knights.

Isn't that more of a metroidvania? Terraria maybe? It's more minecrafty, not a lot of coop metroidvania though.

Mario is more platformer, the new one coming to switch soon, wonder? is co op iirc. Maybe Bread and Fred for heavy emphasis on the platforming and co op elements.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe

I'd strongly second the New Super Mario Bros series, but with the warning that it's easy for players to get in each others' way, so you always want at least one of the (up to 4!) players to be both skilled enough to compensate for this and patient enough to put up with it. If not? Penny Arcade called the multiplayer "Divorce Mode". I could play with my kids for years before they could play with just each other without fighting over who messed up whom.