Games to play with the family

Starting a new thread because this sub-discussion from Getting to know one another was just too good:

A lot of people have written us to say they can’t wait to play Stonehearth with spouse or child. In @xophnog’s vein, what other games would you all suggest to play co-operatively with your family, or to get someone you know into your favorite pastime?

In 2001, my dad got me into 2-player co-op Dynasty Warriors 3 for the PS2, and I proceeded to spread the love to everyone else in my college draw group, including my now-husband. We pulled it out again just last weekend to relive the memories (and lament over how badly our skills have atropied; DW5 and Orochi Warriors were almost as good, but never as brutally hard.) Hei Fei Castle lives! How about you all?

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I think the game that got me to play with my brother the most is Final Fantasy Christal Chronicles on Gamecube. We bought the cables for the GBA just to be able to play together. This was one of the only and most fun games we played together. Those were really fun times, and i sometimes miss the game a little.

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Maybe it’s odd to answer my own question, but I will list the games I HAVE found to play with family.

Console:<br >
Secret of Mana<br >
Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine<br >
Kirby’s Epic Yarn (Another game whose art design I rave about.)<br >
New Super Mario Bros.Wii (Though I have heard this game called “relationship poison” because of how easy it is to accidentally kill each other.)

Computer:<br >
StarCraft (Played with my brother, not my wife.)<br >
Puzzle Pirates (We usually just ended up playing the swordfighting and boxing puzzles together)<br >
Minecraft<br >

It remains a woefully small list.

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I have found my girlfriend will play any cute or voxel based game. (voxel based tends to lean toward cute). She is also willing to explore any game with really good aesthetics or art (she is an artist). I just try to find things that relate to her hobbies in games and she will normally try them.

My mom will play anything that pits Good vs Evil. Obvious good vs evil, like angels vs demons or what have you.

Second this. The first time we ever pulled off a 4-person combo (took months to gather both people and equipment), we all jumped up and cheered.

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Cute or voxel based: Sims pets (animals) as well as animal crossing, lots of DS games fill her time, those lean towards cute. She also plays minecraft, wants to play sotneheart (who doesn’t). Hm, there are lots. She does pixel art sometimes so I can see how voxel based games would appeal.

Good vs Evil: Her favirote game is Kingdom hearts and if you interrupt her she will yell about how she is busy fighting the forces of evil. I can’t dredge up the names of all her PS2 games, but thats what she plays on.

I’ve found some games are single player but benefit from double-teaming:

  • Any Layton game (pass the DS around when one person gets stumped)
  • Any Final Fantasy (pass the controller when you’re tired of grinding)

And some single-player story branching games benefit from 2 simultaneous playthroughs, so you can make different choices and compare notes

  • Dragon Age
  • Mass Effect
  • really, anything by Bioware

And finally some do really well as pseudo movies, where one person is playing and the other is watching. Uncharted, Arkham Asylum, Bioshock Infinite, etc.

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i love playing Minecraft with my daughter, mainly because she is floored by any pitiful structure i manage to build for her…

on the console front, my son and I have been having a blast playing Skylander Giants (one of the best marketing schemes ever conceived, by the way)… :wink:

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Fable is a good one for the consoles.

Uhh… Little Big Planet (1 and 2) are about as good as it gets in harmless co-op platform gaming. It’s practically a free form Game (yes with a capital G) and while there are levels to clear, how you play is entirely up to you.

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This is a fun topic, and I kind of envy all of you who manage to play video games with your family :wink:

My parents have never been interested in video games in any way. It has been card games or some board games (monopoly and smiliar) with them. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy those games as well (RISK 2210 is a fav!). Me and my slightly older brother got a NES as first gaming device, then on to Amiga 500 and so on. And to be honest, I don’t think we wanted our parents to play video games with us.

My fiancee lost her interest in video games after the NES era, but she understands my interest and doesn’t complain too much now after I quit my WoW raiding a few years ago. Very understandable that she wasn’t happy with it though… I am however unable to interest her in any form of games nowadays.

Today, with two small kids, house and work, it is kind of hard to keep up any regular form of gaming (digital or analogue), and definitely not together. But watching my 4 year old son playing Super Mario (NES) on my Xperia PLAY, how he tries to play Minecraft PE, when he wants me to play Don’t Starve or Minecraft on PC… I think (hope) I have my gaming buddy right there :smile:

Next year I will perhaps play SH with him, wonder if I can lure my other half into it as well :wink:

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