My partner and I occasionally play games together, but they pretty much only play word puzzle games on their own. I'm not very good at word games though, and they don't have very good spatial skills, so we frequently find ourselves mismatched. We have a switch and a single decent gaming pc, and a pretty old laptop.
The biggest hit for us has been Baba is You because it is slow paced, and combines words and logic and spatial reasoning. Our biggest problem was that its not actually coop, so we would just alternate who played, which can disengage the other person. My partner also thought its aesthetic is cute.
Our next positive example is probably Snipperclips is also a pretty slow paced puzzler, is mostly spatial skills, but we could play at the same time. They also liked how interactive the avatars are, and particularly snipping my avatar up.
The first miss is overcooked, it was a bit too chaotic, and my partner felt a little lost and uncoordinated. They don't remember it super well, so we might retry this one at some point if they feel more at home playing video games.
The other miss is Mario Kart, which they liked when we played with 4 player, but not just the 2 of us. I'm significantly better at Mario Kart, and they are pretty competitive. If they get more into games they might be willing to put in some time improving, but not so much right now.
Our worst miss was probably Tricky Towers, I'm decently good at regular Tetris, so I can do okay out of the box at physics based Tetris, but there was too much happening to fast for my partner. Combine that with it the competitive aspect and they didn't enjoy this one at all.
The games they most fondly remember from childhood are Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero, though we have downstairs neighbors under part of our apartment and no dance pad or guitars, SSX Tricky, and the Lord of the Rings movie tie in games.
They think they'd enjoy a game that does movement as input like ddr or guitar hero but is maybe less bouncy, and are open to action games, or games with a story, but they should be easier to control and not be too chaotic. Cute aesthetics and cats are a plus.
Thanks!
Edit: Everybody gave great recommendations! We picked up It takes two and pizza possum. Just finished the first chapter of it takes two and we had a blast, and I might even be able to get another game night in this weekend if we can be on top of chores. I'll keep checking in this thread for more ideas for future games to try! Thanks again!
To quote Bob Belcher, "Laugh On Loudly". Gloomhaven is so good that I kickstarted Frosthaven to support the maker. It's sealed in the box, in a closet.
I do play Frosthaven (we've completed Gloomhaven and Forgotten Circles) with 2 of my siblings and a step brother on Tuesdays. Fridays I play Crimson Scales (fan made Gloomhaven expansion) on Table Top Simulator.
Luckily, the sister and her husband host and do all the setup (we play their copy). TTS, I host but the "setup" is basically loading the mod and clicking a couple buttons. For the physical game, we use Gloomhaven Secretariat to manage the monster abilities, attack modifiers, health, effects, etc which really cuts down the setup/teardown time.
I did have a seat open up on the Friday table, we get together about 5:30pm and run until 8pm Eastern...
We have Jaws of the Lion.
Looking into secretariat for gloomhaven quickly, it looks really useful, I've been thinking about the gloomhaven video game as an option too. There are things I like about physical more, but I also think it'd be very convenient.
I super appreciate the implied offer, and hope that someone fills your spot. I am however on west coast time, and am kinda half evening shift schedule besides, so I wouldn't be able to make that at all regularly...
Thank you though!
In the board game theme, have you tried any 2-player abstract strategy games? Some of my favourites include:
Quarto (complex 4-in-a-row game with a twist: your opponent chooses the piece you must play)
Quixo (from the same publisher, Gigamic - tic tac toe on steroids with an ever-changing board)
Hive (each piece moves a certain way, very portable defend-the-queen game)
Tak (simple rules, deep strategy - connect opposite edges of the board while preventing your opponent from doing it)
Not strategy, but abstract speed game: Nine Tiles by Japanese company Oink Games (not Nine Tiles Panic, tho that one isn't bad). Oink has very clever, easily packable party games and a few can be played with two people.