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.
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
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.
We just started the spiritfarer. Absolutely worth it
A few options me and my partner have enjoyed:
Bunhouse - a non-management-heavy farming simulator but you are bunnies growing plants. Cute as hell. There is a sequel where you run a bakery too but we haven’t got round to that just yet.
Unrailed - might fall into the overcooked catagory, but when it gets hard and goes wrong it tends to be a looming inevitablity, not a frantic panic
Nidhogg - a 1v1 fighter, but is quick fire frantic sword fights you can button bash through which is wildly entertaining in 5 min bursts.
Broaden your horizons, start using emulators.
Star Wars: Jedi Power Battles
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Super Mario Wonder
Any of the Warriors games (just don’t buy it, don’t reward them for releasing the same damn game 20+ times)
Legend of Mana (highly recommended, please don’t sleep on this)
Destroy All Humans 2
Ratchet: Deadlocked
Divinity: Original Sin
Resident Evil 6
Halo: Master Chief Collection
Lego Star Wars
The Tales games are long and go up to 4 players. I’d recommend them if you have more people to join.
Be prepared for a few roadbumps while you acclimate yourself to using emulators. It won’t be smooth at first, but it gets easier the more familiar you become with it.
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.
Death Squared. Puzzle solving, each player controls two blocks on the map used to solve the puzzle.
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.
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
My girlfriend and I do the same but with more simplistic story heavy games. We just finished Slay The Princess and it was an amazing experience like this.
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.
… Genital Jousting.
Like, doing it or playing it?
Yes
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
- A Hat in Time
- Trine
- Spiritfarer
- The lego games
- Knights and bikes
- Human fall flat
- Cassette beasts
- Chariot
- Octodad
- Monaco
I don’t remember these being particularly violent but maybe are worth a look:
- Pit people
- BattleBlock Theater
I also liked Moon Hunters and Children of Morta but those are harder.
Divinity Original Sin 1 is also good but definitely falls into the violent category. Its kind of goofy too so it could be worth considering. The second game + BG3 are significantly more violent and serious so are harder to recommend with that criteria.
Edit: hmm it seems the formatting is funky in Voyager, should be fixed now
Dude, Octodad in the random arm-leg mode is so fucking funny. My wife and I had so much fun with that game. Too bad the game is so short!
+1 for the LEGO games. Sort of my go to sleeper pick for surprisingly good games. The humor is good, gameplay is decent though I have to go on big breaks between playing through one because gameplay game to game can be a bit samey.
I’ll add a +1 to Battleblock Theater! Such a well done game that can be true co-op or “co-op with shenanigans” if that’s more your vibe. The story is entertaining and lighthearted and the levels introduce new mechanics throughout.
A bunch of retro games have good couch co-op support & the steam deck can emulate pretty much all of them
Zombies ate my neighbors, smash TV, 2-d brawlers like TMNT turtles in time, double dragon, and streets of rage, Goldeneye, toejam and Earl, bubble bobble
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).
Blur…from archive.org
Check out Kingdom Two Crowns. Absolutely brilliant
I second this. I’ve played it with three mates now and they all loved it
This one looks for me, actually :P
The whole series is great. But two Crowns is multi player. But, thinking, might only be split screen on one device?
