My partner expressed an interest in finding a game for both of us to play. She doesn’t play many games, and I generally prefer single player games so I find myself at a loss for what’s out there that we might like. Hoping the community here can help!
We have played some retro platformers together. Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, that kind of thing. And I know she plays puzzle match games on her phone. Which isn’t a lot to go on.
It needs to be a multiplayer PC game that runs on Linux/Proton (if unsure, please suggest your game anyway. It probably does). One machine is a mid-range PC from about 5 years ago. So probably no recent AAA games with high system requirements.
I’m thinking:
- Easy to pick up and play and can offer a satisfying play experience with short play times.
- Cooperative play would be a plus.
- Being able to play with just two people (not forced to play with random people online).
My particularities:
- I won’t play a game that requires creating/signing in to an account to play it at all. I can tolerate that requirement for multiplayer play, but I’d rather it just use a Steam account.
- I’d prefer if it didn’t install a launcher.
- I’d like it to either have a built in server and/or be selfhostable.
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Here is list of some games that I enjoyed playing with my wife:
One of my favorite recent games were: Ale and Tale Tavern and RV there yet.
Here is list of other game I have played (+ or - if I recommend it). These were all I found in my Steam Library.
Single player games that can be played “together”
- Witness (++)
- Last day of June (+)
- AER Memories of Old (±)
Farming sims:
- Stardew Valley (+++)
- Ale and Tale Tavern (++)
- Roots of Pacha (+)
- Sun Haven (+)
- Travellers Rest (±)
Exploration/Story:
- It Takes Two (+++)
- Squirreled Away (++)
- Swords 'n Magic and Stuff (++)
- Split Fiction (+)
- Peak (+)
- Don’t Starve Together (+)
Action:
- Moon Hunters (+)
- Full Metal Furies (+)
- Nine Parchments (+)
- Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (-)
- Pathless Woods (-)
- Castle Crashers (-)
Puzzle:
- Portal 2 co-op (++)
- Trine 2-4 (+)
Party:
- Overcooked (+)
Stardew Valley. My wife and I just started playing it together. It is a good time. Genuinely fantastic game.
I picked up gaming in 2022 (played all the Halo Games, Star Wars Fallen order and Survivor, Dark Souls) and she hasn’t played anything since childhood in the 90’s… We are both loving Stardew.
I know that you said multiplayer, but if I can be one more voice on single player games that you guys may enjoy playing in turns I strongly recommend GRIS. It is so beautiful and I think it suits itself well for shorter play sessions.
From the top of my head I can think two:
- Battle block theater is a platformer puzzle game and really fun to play in local coop, and it runs on almost anything.
- Sonic All stars racing is a really fun Mario kart like racing game with local multiplayer.
Not sure about Linux support though, so check it out first, but both are relatively old titles so I think they have a good chance to run.
Deep Rock Galactic can be played up to 4 players, but 2 is fine. There’s difficulty scaling to what you want to do and you have to want to play high difficulty content to access it. You go around various biomes, mining for resources, fending off enemies. There’s a multitude of mission types to play that can be fun to funny.
It was officially released in 2020 but was in early access for longer than that. It’ll run well on mid range PC builds and supports Linux though with the typical warning it might be a little janky until you get the right modifications going. The DLC in the game is cosmetics and you have plenty you can earn through regular gameplay.
A racing style game that you two can play around in I believe is called Wreck Fest. It’s a demolition styled racing game so crashing, smashing, and bashing are all encouraged. It has from straight racing to demolition derbies with AI.
It released in 2018 and should work fine on a mid-range PC, though might need to turn down some of the physics effects since there’s a lot. Its DLC is different cars which isn’t really pay to win as they have strengths and weaknesses to them. I’ve played it on single player and it’s still fun, with a friend would be wonderful.
If you’d like a rogue lite kind of game, there’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Splintered Fate. It’s a coop rogue lite where you build up power sets and see how they do. Can be up to 4 players but solo is very much viable as well.
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Try emulating Kirby and the Forgotten Land using a Switch emulator.
I recommend avoiding people’s recommendations for PC-only/indie games altogether. You will be lowering your standards just to get something that ‘works’ rather than something that’s actually worth your time.
This is a bonkers take on PC games
Only if you have low standards.
Portal 2 has great puzzles for two players, but the timing can be frustrating
Portal 2 was my first thought as well. It can also work as a good litmus test for how they will respond to FPS controls. You can try kb/m or controller and see what feels natural. My partner (we found playing left4dead after portal) is an inverted controller person. Which was wild to me considering they worked in a heavy clerical field and really took to building keyboard with me. Yet, no kb/m for gaming. After that switch , they were able to enjoy co-op 1st person stuff a lot easier.
After portal we played borderlands 2 together. It’s low pressure most of the time and can be a background activity while you talk and hang out. The story is kinda cheesy but it’s fun to share the inside jokes with someone and bonded us in an unexpected way.
Hopefully those work for you!
Edit: it takes two and split fiction are really fantastic coop experiences as well. But, it take two should probably have a small warning for emotional content. Split fiction is a ton of fun but does get kinda difficult for less seasoned players. I found it endearing helping through those sections, but it could be harder for others. There are some moments that we both audibly wowed at though! That made the difficulty worth it.
It takes two
split fiction
These two were the top two favs of my wife and I last year. Played it takes two on our steam decks, and split fiction on our PCs. One of them is older and handled it great. Both pcs run linux.
I’d like to add their first game A Way Out. My partner and I had a blast playing it.
Different vibe and very slow. The newer games are more fun in my opinion.
A Way Out is still my favorite, probably just prefer more grounded games.
oooOoooo I haven’t heard of that one, I’m gonna take a look, thanks!
It Takes Two felt a bit easier/beginner friendly (and I liked the story better), but I would also recommended both of them.
Hmm. Interesting options! I’m not sure if she’d enjoy these types of games. But I can show her the trailer at least. Thanks for the recommendation!
I wish they weren’t EA games. Split Fiction at least doesn’t require an EA account so I’ll show her that one.
Agree with It Takes Two.
The platforming can be frustrating in parts, but as she’s played Mario and donkey kong, then it should be fine.
I mean the other obvious option are the various Lego games.
Lego Harry Potter etc.
Or as others have said: Overcooked
I really enjoyed We Were Here with a good friend. It’s a coop escape room like puzzle game where you’ll play in different rooms but your puzzles interact with the other room and you’ll have to communicate and work the two rooms together to solve it
Tick Tock:A Tale for Two is also a similar idea, but doesn’t require first person navigation.
The sequels are also very nice!
The Past within has a similar concept and is also great!
Semi-casual games that run well on older PCs and linux? Plus no launchers? Let’s see.
I got a few but there may be splitscreen ones in this list too. (If that’s ok)- Battleblock Theater
- Biped (maybe?)
- Cassette Beasts
- Castle Crashers
- Children of Morta
- Don’t Starve Together
- Dinkum (If Australian Animal Crossing sounds interesting)
- Factorio
- A hat in time
- Guacamelee
- Human Fall Flat
- Hyper Light Drifter
- ibb & obb
- KeyWe
- Kingdom Two Crowns
- Knights and Bikes
- Like, all of the lego games (They’re all similar mechanically, so pick one of the newer ones that look good)
- Lovers in a dangerous spacetime
- Magicka (I like the first one but the second one isn’t bad)
- Monaco
- Moon Hunters
- Necesse
- Peak
- Resident Evil 5/6 (Yes, really, its a great time in co-op)
- Satisfactory
- Secrets of Grindea
- Split Fiction (This one may be graphically harder to run?)
- Stardew Valley
- Spiritfarer
- Terraria
- Trine games
- Valheim (At least until mistlands)
I’m kind of going off of semi-casual meaning not high intensity shooters or things that require crazy skills. Most of these are pretty easy to pick up and are generally forgiving. They shouldn’t have launchers but if they added one in a later update, then dang.
Semi-casual
Factorio
Are you trying to kill him?
Playing Factorio co-op was one of the games that got my wife into gaming. She couldn’t do quick reaction time shooters, but Factorio at its most basic is essentially a ‘puzzle’ game.
… But yeah we lost a few weekends or weeks or months to it. The factory must grow.
That is quite the list! I know a handful of these but most are new to me. I haven’t gone through it them yet but I wanted to be sure to say thanks for the effort you put in to your reply.
I will toss in, don’t starve together is very much NOT beginner friendly. Playing with someone less experienced with video games can turn into effectively playing with one hand behind your back as you try to cover the needs for both of you, the world is threatening, and the penalty for death is high. Might not be well suited to what you’re looking for
Lovers in a dangerous spacetime was a ton of fun! Very adorable, simple mechanics, plays on one screen, and not too hard. Also came out over 5 years ago so win win
Everyone who likes couch co-op should play this one. It’s fantastic.
This looks great! I hadn’t considered a local co-op but I think I’ve got a second controller kicking around somewhere and could make that work.
Stardew valley? Farming co op game has a LAN mode so you can play together. You can do a casual playthrough to learn or try to min max like my wife does.
Haven’t played that in years but a game I enjoy! I wasn’t aware it had co-op, but I think that’s going to be too slow and involved for her tastes though. But the suggestion is still appreciated.
I’ve posted about this somewhere else too, maybe a different account idk.
But for games to play with people that aren’t really “gamers” I actually prefer single player games with light amounts of fast paced action or none at all. The “coop” comes from taking turns with the controller.
This works well with puzzle or logic games with generous reaction time requirements (again, or none at all), as well as story based games with light action. A lot of these games also come with natural pauses in the story that provide opportunities to either swap who is driving or put the game down for the day.
I’ve had a lot of success playing through many of these titles with partners. I’m sorting these roughly by category and then how strongly I recommend them. Some of these games I haven’t actually played yet, but I know them to fit the overall vibe.
Puzzle/Logic - no reaction time required
- Chants of Sennaar (HIGHLY recommend, requires decent notes and map making, so the person not using the controller still has a job)
- Strange Horticulture (HIGHLY recommend, also requires some light note taking to make life easier)
- Strange Antiquities (sequel to above, have not played yet, high expectations)
- Return of the Obra Din (have not played yet, high expectations)
- The Case of the Golden Idol + DLCs (STRONGLY recommend, got a bit burnt out by the end, but very fun, also light note taking)
- The Rise of the Golden Idol (sequel to above, have not played yet, moderate to high expectations)
- Baba is You (HIGHLY recommend, nice learning curve but becomes brutally difficult towards the end of the game)
- Myst (HUGE game, very good, but daunting and little to no hand holding, detailed notes required)
Kind of a category within a category, haven’t played these, but they’ve been referred to as 1.5 player games.
- Spiritfarer
- Chicory
- Child of Light
Puzzle/Logic - aim and reaction time needed
- Portal 1
- Portal 2 (and its coop if you have 2 devices)
- Portal Reloaded (community mod adding a portal through time with some seriously mind bending puzzles)
- Portal Revolutions (another mod, haven’t played yet but looks fun)
- Viewfinder (HIGHLY recommend, spiritual successor to Portal IMO and a very, very good game)
- Superliminal (HIGHLY recommend, a “Portal-like” that uses perspective as the core mechanic)
Story Based - some action sequences requiring aim and reaction time and some puzzling
- Stray (just a cute good time with some spooky, heart rate spiking moments where you really don’t want your kitty to get hurt)
- Alien Isolation (if you’re horror movie people at all this is like an interactive movie)
- Shadows of a Doubt (might be a miss for a lot of people, immersive detective sim)
- Firewatch (played this a long time ago, might not hold up)
- Dredge (spooky but cute fishing sim with good story)
- Summertime Madness (not much reaction time needed, but still some aim or speed based puzzles)
All of these that I’ve played were on either Arch (custom), Arch (Garuda), or NixOS based systems under Proton. Two of those systems were installed from scratch and they performed flawlessly, so if you’re on a system that handles all the audio and video driver installation for you things should be very smooth. The Garuda machine is a laptop from 2016 that is plugged into my TV and actually saw the most play time for these titles. It held up perfectly. The other two systems were back to back installs on my fairly beefy desktop, but installation and running the games was smooth after the initial effort to get the systems fully functional with drivers and controller support.
Sonic Racing Crossworlds. The bots are plenty tough on the hardest difficulty. But you can make them easy too.
