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
You must log in or register to comment.
Blur…from archive.org
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!
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.
We enjoyed A Way Out. Gonna try Sea of stars soon.
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).
… Genital Jousting.
If you’re open to doing emulation, there’s a multitude of Nintendo games that are amazing couch co-op.
Ballers gate 3? Pretty sure that runs on. Steam deck.
If you don’t want something too serious, you can try
- Fling to the Finish
- Keywe.
Both are cute and kind of funny, doesn’t get too difficult as long as you don’t chase highscores.
Unrailed is less chaotic than overcooked, but can still get a little stressful as tasks pile up.
Oh yeah KeyWe is great fun! Some levels took me and my partner two tries but it’s nothing too punishing. Highly recommended
Also PlateUp!
- 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
+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.
Me and the wife played a few coop games.
- DERU - The Art of Cooperation is a pretty puzzle game that is satisfying, not too difficult nor does it overstay its welcome.
- We also enjoyed the snake-esque puzzler OmoTomO. Only on itch, not Steam, so you have to install it via the desktop mode. When you’re willing to dig a bit itch grants you some shiny gold nuggets for cheap.
- In Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime you have to run around a spaceship to operate the different parts (engine, guns, shield). More straightforward than it sounds, and the pacing is such that you’re not rushed but do get some tense moments.
- Almost forgot Pode which is a very cute 3rd person puzzle adventure game.
Some games recommended by other people in the thread that we can corroborate
- Trine series is good platforming fun with pretty graphics and dialog that is a little on the nose sometimes.
- Kingdom: Two Crowns is good for a few hours at least, can’t say I cared about beating it because the levels just keep coming with only minor variations. Definitely a unique blend of tower defense and base building.
Personally I agree on Overcooked, once the novelty wears off it gets a bit frustrating because of the difficulty. Its still fun in groups though.
My SO isn’t that big of a gamer but these are the games we’ve played together:
Lovers in a dangerous spacetime Battleblock Theatre Octodad
I don’t know how the tolerance for difficulty is for you guys but I think it’s worth a look
Lovers in a dangerous spacetime (i.e. Space bunnies) is a great, light, up to 4 player arcade game
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.
A Way Out is marked as “Playable” by Valve, mainly because of Origin (or EA App nowadays?) and some quirks with the controls. Should play just fine though and once in-game controllers should be well supported.
In case you’re comfortable trying a couple things out it does work for some on steam deck. ProtonDB link
Tinkering is fine, I’ll definitely check it out. Thanks!
Split Fiction is peak, gonna be hard to beat. Too bad you can’t do ‘a way out’ it’s very well done. Might want to look into tweaks for those “unsupported” games, as many of them work fine. Unraveled 2 is a good example.
Otherwise, If this is something that is really becoming your thing, it might be time to hook your PC to the TV or invest in a console. If you go console, you additionally open up the world of games that require individual screens (crossplay games-you on steam deck screen and them on TV screen, but still sitting together OR you on pc and them on TV if same room).
Our couch coop at some points was me with my laptop on a stack of books on the coffee table while she was on a ps4. Played Aragami this way, for one.
They may seem silly, but there are a slew of Lego games that people get really into and are very impressive. Human Fall Flat also has some silliness, but good puzzles at times
I don’t know why I didn’t remember this. I do have a decent PC and the streaming functionality works quite well. I played Path of Exile 2 this way and it was great. Thanks for reminding me!
