Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Bouchart]

Maybe something like Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale co-op.

Dungeon Siege 1, while I highly dislike the game, might also be a good choice because of its relatively simple combat.

[nenjin]

Terraria does require manual dexterity, and can get pretty crazy on the enemies, but it ramps up fairly slowly, giving her a chance to get comfortable. Has the exploration down pat, and the creative part so she can get invested in it.

[The13thRonin]

Mum of the year?

[sambojin]

M.U.L.E on the NES is good for some competitive but non-violent fun. Not really exploration based, except for cryst-x finding, but still good. It's semi-turn based, with a simultaneous trading section as the competitve section.

The Heroes of Might and Magic series is a good mix of turn based and exploration, with some pretty cool stuff to do. But there is A LOT to learn, and games can take forever.

I'm not really sure if Machiavelli (Merchant Prince) could be played hotseat. But again, non violent explorey fun, no reflexes required. Heavily trade based. You can hire armies, but you can do all kinds of other stuff too.

There was also a mod / shell for Master of Magic so that you could play a two player hotseat game. Seemed to work fine. Two worlds to explore, and a million ways of doing it.

I'm pretty sure an old shareware game called Capture the Flag could be played as two player hotseat. It's a surprisingly good game in multiplayer.

I'll second Worms as a fun, fairly basic one too.

Things like puzzle-bobble, columns and even tetris are pretty fun to play, either as a high score challenge or as two-player hotseat games. Easy, but hard as well. I actually had a high score challenge going against my mum for a few months there. I'm pretty sure she won in the end.

Card games are also pretty good to play. Most mums can play more than just solitaire. They can also probably beat you at them too.

Anything turn-based strategy on the consoles can work. There's plenty of two player hotseat games. It depends on how complicated you want them. Genghis Khan II comes to mind, but it's complicated as hell until you remember what all the little pictures mean.

Easier shoot'em ups are good for a laugh. Tyrian (or actually, OpenTyrian, it's free now) had a pretty cool two player mode. If your mum wants, she can join your ship and just do turret work if she wants.

[snelg]

Trine maybe? Has possibility of co-op on one machine too. Although that would mean one person needs a controller or such and mouse is useful.

[RangerCado]

Minecraft is a decent recommendation with a few mods.

Portal 2 for a few tries could be a good start to see if your mom enjoys playing it.

If you want to try console games instead, any of the mario parties set to the teams mode could work, the mario kart games as well.

hmm… playing pokemon together with your mom making the decisions on selections of things could work, with you providing small bits of advice as you go.

And… hmm… Maybe try Agar.io for some simple but fun games of attempting to protect each other.

[i2amroy]

Yeah, Portal 2 AFAIK Portal 2 removed almost all of the twitch gameplay.

Crypt of the Necrodancer is fun, but I found in most cases playing with my Dad ended up with him dying repeatedly at the start of every level while I actually played the game.

Minecraft is really fun just on a local LAN (and if you set it up with server controls you can do things like keep resetting the day until they get the hang of it). Personally I spent several days playing on LAN with my Dad (who loved the game) and then chipped out like $5 a month to rent a server that both of us can play on. If it's just the two of you it's really cheap to rent a nice little server, especially if you pay for 3+ months at one point to pick up the multi-month discount. And honestly? Once you have a basic base set up you don't really need much twitch skills for minecraft (and it slowly teaches you the ones you need). My Dad is just about the worst computer coordinated person I know (he fairly regularly falls off ledges, etc.) but he's getting by. Just keep it daytime until you have a little base set up, cheat yourself in a bed or two if there are no sheep nearby, and then walk them through it. For mods personally I suggest starting with vanilla till they get used to it, then expanding out. I know one of the big things that my Dad had trouble with was just learning all the different things and how they worked, and mods tend to greatly expand on that.

Mario Kart is also another fun multiplayer game, though I suggest DoubleDash for the gamecube if you still have it lying around since you actually get that co-op feel instead of just both of you playing at the same time.

Mario Party are the games that ruin friendships.

[Urist Imiknorris]

Seconding Terraria so hard.

[sambojin]

On the basis of this thread, and on taking my own advice, I have now promised to teach my mum how to play M.U.L.E and Capture the Flag.

It's gotta be better than solitaire, mah-jong and sodoku puzzles. I think those actually make you stupider, whilst being great time wasters during retirement.

[Tawa]

Mario Kart is also another fun multiplayer game, though I suggest DoubleDash for the gamecube if you still have it lying around since you actually get that co-op feel instead of just both of you playing at the same time.

I second this. I also second Minecraft; if you're willing to cheat a little bit, you could set up a command block loop with Creative before starting play to make it daytime all the time until she gets the hang of the game.

[BigD145]

On the basis of this thread, and on taking my own advice, I have now promised to teach my mum how to play M.U.L.E and Capture the Flag.

It's gotta be better than solitaire, mah-jong and sodoku puzzles. I think those actually make you stupider, whilst being great time wasters during retirement.

I play board games with my mom. Complex ones like Silverton. Ones with a lot of choices. She's smart. She gets them. I've seen grandmothers play things like serious GMT wargames.

[Sappho]

I had this exact scenario a while back, and Minecraft turned out to be the answer. We play on peaceful because she doesn't like fighting, but I have made a custom mod pack for us (including several hunger mods so it's easy to starve to death even on peaceful) and we never run out of things to do. She loves it. She's better at building than me. I can send you a list of the mods we use if you're interested.

[puke]

I just saw something called "Windward" come across my Steam recommendations.   Reviews are fairly positive.

It purports to be a coop  / trading / questing / exploring game, with an age of sail setting and procedural content.  And pirates, so there is combat.

I guess towns grow and their production is modeled to some extent, so you can help the economy grow and such.  It actually sounds pretty cool, maybe will try to get the Mrs to give it a try (though unfortunately I just hooked her on Banished...)

I'm not sure if you can disable or turn down the combat aspects, but depending on how the coop works you can probably setup some sort of thing where you play the gunship and she plays the merchant.

[sambojin]

Are there any WWII games, computer or boardgames, about the Assault on the Karelian Peninsula? Russia vs Finland?

That'd tickle me pink.

It's a Finnish thing. Even a son of one. Those crazy snow-bunnies.

Just wondering. Are there are any games with this as an easy to play campaign? Something my mum could learn?

ps. One of the few "good" things, even though it was horribly bad on "every damned side", out of WWII. Because no-one won. Kind of. I still want bits of Karellia. No, I can't spell it. There's dots or russian lingo or actual spelling. It's a strange place like that. I still assume that some of that is MINE! As an Australian citizen.

[puke]

Are there any WWII games, computer or boardgames, about the Assault on the Karelian Peninsula? Russia vs Finland?

That'd tickle me pink.

Boardgame.  Blood on the Snow.  Awesome.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7847/blood-snow-battle-suomussalmi

The gameplay is clean and not very fiddley.  You really get a good feel for the different tactics and the overall composure of each side.  The map is beautiful and artfully designed.  Cant recommend it enough.

Also, this is a great book on the subject:  http://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Hell-Russo-Finnish-Winter-1939-1940/dp/1565122496