Like we’re not triple-A machine possessors at this point. A friend and I played in the era of the original Age of Empires, and StarCraft; Worms, and Dune. We were core SNES-PS2 era. We were never the ultra competitive hotkey speed run strategy types, but just played for fun.
Anyone out there in your late 30s to early 40s that have managed to connect to old friends despite long distances, what are you playing now?
Light hearted easy games that I would play would be things like:
- Overcooked
- Stardew Valley
- Castle Crashers
- Fall Guys
- Crystal Crisis
My reasoning would be that they’re mostly (other than Stardew Valley) are quick and easy games. Not knowing what the other person is really into any more, it might be just an easy way to dip toes into the water.
Mobile games wise, while I don’t play many, I would recommend:
- Kitty Letter
- Exploding Kittens
I’ve always enjoyed left 4 dead as a casual co-op, and Back 4 Blood is a great revamp of the originals. Idk about others, but I’ve always had a hard time getting competitive in these games. Though if you want a little friendly competition, versus still exists with a lot of fun new special zombies.
I’m in the same range, and have moved from Canada to the UK. So basically multiplayer games and the Internet are the only way for me to reconnect with buddies back home.
One game we’ve been rocking pretty hard when we all have time is Deeprock Galactic. It’s good fun, team based mission shooter-looter. Don’t really need super tight controller skills, spray and pray is a viable strat. And rounds are usually like 15-30mins which is great for some of my friends back home with kids.I’d agree with the others who said to go for games that can be played as co-op, rather than competitive with each other.
Some good ones include: Don’t Starve Together, Valheim, Deep Rock Galactic, Minecraft, Portal 2 (main co-op campaign, and the somewhat hidden co-op free dlc campaign that also exists and is imo even better).
Most survival games that have multiplayer have a co-op/no friendly fire option, and they have adjustable difficulty oftentimes, so you can set it up to be as easy or hard as you want.
Or you could go fully the other way and try the old classic Magica (not Magica 2, the first game is much better) and kill each other in ridiculous ways
My top recommendation for you though is Divinity Original Sin 2, and Divinity Original Sin 1 as well. The second game especially is the king of co-op RPG’s, and both have an incredibly fun combat system, to the point that part of the game would be fun even without the rest of it. And each player in the 2nd game can play a pre-made character with their own story, or they can make a custom character.
Edit: actually I’m not sure of the system requirements for the divinity games, so my top recommendation is now Minecraft and other survival games. They can be really good for hang-out games partly because you can usually wander off and do your own thing while you talk if you want, or you can collaborate, and they leave a lot of room for talking about stuff besides the game.
I’d also suggest trying synchronized movie/tv watching, if ya’ll are the sort to enjoy talking over movies or tv like that. Just pick one, set up voice chat, and press play at the same time. Bonus points for “so bad it’s good” movies like birdemic etc.
