Games that my non-gamer girlfriend can watch me playing?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨verycoolusername@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨patientgamers@sh.itjust.works⁩

I recently finished The Last of Us 2. My girlfriend sometimes watches me play my games. And while I thought that TLoU would be a great game to follow, it was hard for her to watch (due to the violence). I wonder if there is a game that would be easy or even interesting for her to watch while I play, without it having to be something strictly family frieny, that also has fun gaming mechanics and isn’t just a walking simulator. Looking forward to any ideas! :)

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sonovebitch@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The Quantum games (Heaby Rain, Beyond:Two Souls) are great for that. Also the Life Is Strange series.

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- smort@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I liked Firewatch a lot, but it basically is a walking simulator
  
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  - CybranM@feddit.nu ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It had me intrigued at first but it didn’t really lead anywhere. Overrated game with pretty dated graphics imho
    
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- theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Second this. My girlfriend has absolutely not interest in playing games but enjoyed going through Detroit with me and helping choose different options as the game progressed. We even went back to replay some of it to get to different endings which is something I barely ever do when playing games by myself.
  
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- reef@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Adding on:
  
  LA Noire is pretty good, it’s slow enough that you can talk through the different options, or just be silly while having a laugh
  
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starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
The Outer Wilds is my vote. The kind of game that can be made much better with a spectator helping keep track of things and figuring out puzzles with you

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- TeaHands@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Outer Wilds, not to be confused with The Outer Worlds!
  
  Great suggestion. Me and my partner “play” a lot of games together where one of us controls but both get to have input and make decisions, and this is a fantastic example.
  
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  - jballs@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Holy crap I didn’t even realize Outer Wilds and The Outer Worlds were two different games. I keep hearing how good Outer Wilds was, so was excited when it was on the Humble Bundle Choice games a few months ago. Turns out it was The Outer Worlds. Dammit.
    
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- Theharpyeagle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Seconded! Thirded, even! It’s so fun to figure things out as a group and do discover things together.
  
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Deebster@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There’s a whole channel that kinda answers this! Girlfriend Reviews started as a channel where the presenter reviewed what it was like to live with someone that played games - i.e. how good it was to watch someone else play. She’s started playing some of the games herself lately, but the point still stands.

In a recent video Should Your Boyfriend Play Spider-Man 2? she says it’s

the best game to watch someone else play this year

(at which point I paused to go find this post and see if anyone else had posted this channel already).

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- verycoolusername@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes, I just remembered this too!
  
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Anamana@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I dunno but many said ‘stray’ was good, but it’s defo alsp a walking sim in some ways

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rikudou@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Life is Strange (1 and Before the Storm), Witcher 3, Detroit: Become Human.

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- Dagnet@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Life is Strange is also amazing if she wants to try playing since almost nothing is timed and you can rewind most choices too
  
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  - rikudou@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Though that one choice that cannot be rewinded I obviously fucked up in my first playthrough.
    
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- starman2112@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  +1 for Detroit. If you want to stress her the hell out, have her play as the pretty girl android
  
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- jballs@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Life is Strange True Colors was good too, IMO.
  
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  - rikudou@lemmings.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Tried it and didn’t much like it, but everyone’s got different tastes.
    
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CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My wife played Pokemon and Mario Kart before we dated. After dating for a bit she took a bit of interest in what I was playing and even started playing some games on her own.

My wife liked watching:

Witcher 3

Red Dead Redemption

Assassin’s Creed (pre-Origins style games)

Portal

Devil May Cry (besides DmC)

Prototype

Xenoblade Chronicles

L.A. Noire

Spiderman

She joined me or played some others on her own:

Stardew Valley

Rust (surprisingly)

Conan Exiles

Golf with Friends

Animal Crossing

Dinkum

Core Keeper

Terraria

Truck Simulator

Ori and the Blind Forest

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag (she liked to gather supplies and do small secondary quests, or just sail around)

The all-time winner was Breath of the Wild, she loved to watch and play it, and sometimes I watched her play it too. She solved problems in very different ways than I did and it was interesting. Example: my primary way to kill Guardians was to deflect blasts, while she just rode her horse at them and cut them apart. You can imagine how nuts Tears of the Kingdom has been lol.

I feel it might be worth mentioning she did not enjoy watching or playing:

Monster Hunter

Any flight/space sims (Ace Combat, Elite Dangerous, etc.)

Factorio

Minecraft

Remnant

Deep Rock Galactic

Vermintide/Darktide

most Metroidvanias

Civilization

If I had to guess at what these share in common, its a lack of story and NPC interactions, or pacing that makes it less interesting to watch.
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- verycoolusername@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Thank you for this personal recommendation. Was interesting to read from first-hand experience!
  
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lingh0e@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Horizon Zero Dawn. It actually got my wife to put her Switch away and watch. That’s saying something.

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sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Stray is great for an audience

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MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Anything story heavy would be good because then for her it’s like watching a movie. Like spiderman, uncharted, god of war, telltale games etc., I would stray away from most RPGs though even though they are story driven but there’s usually a lot of fluff gameplay where you’re just grinding which wouldn’t be very fun to watch.

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- Sigmatics@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This. Basically anything that you could watch “as a movie” on YouTube that doesn’t have excessive filler in between
  
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- otp@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  My Dad really liked the Uncharted series. It’d be great for OP if his girlfriend doesn’t mind some violence. TLoU is a bit high on the graphic stuff
  
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  - MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think how they portray the violence in uncharted games is very different to how bleak it’s shown in TLOU though. The tone is overall very cheery and Indiana Jones-esque.
    
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Copatus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Baldurs Gate 3.

Added bonus that she can help you decide on dialog options

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Gwaer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Outer wilds I think would be an excellent game to play for the first time with a partner and each try to work out how to progress together.

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Honytawk@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
You need story based games for that:

Detroit become human

Or any of the Quantic Dream games really.

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taladar@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
To The Moon is worth playing even if the story has some sad points.

Point and click adventures or visual novels might also be a good fit to play together without it mattering much who has the controls.

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- falkerie71@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Ooh. Been a while since I’ve heard of To the Moon. There’s a sequel to that called Finding Paradise, which I also remember liking. Haven’t followed them since, but their latest game Imposter Factory seems great too judging by the overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam.
  
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  - jballs@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Imposter Factory is, indeed, amazing.
    
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mister_newbie@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Play retro adventure games, or modern Telltale ones.

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Tolstoshev@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My wife enjoyed watching me play Alan Wake.

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- shea@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  this is a great suggestion
  
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cod@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My girlfriend loves to watch me play games. She likes to do “comms” as she says, where she researches tough boss guides, cool weapon locations, etc while I play. It’s interactive for her, and she doesn’t have to learn how to play the game (she doesn’t enjoy most video games and finds them frustrating). One of her favourites was Elden Ring, but really any RPG is a ton of fun for her. My dad used to watch me play video games sometimes too when I was younger, and he liked the Fallout games specifically.

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B0NK3RS@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I think the Telltale games would be good for this. Something relatively short, easy to follow and the storylines from the different games are fun and varied.

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HubertManne@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
final fantasies violence tends to be comic bookey (and not the adult hardcore type) and have great stories. final fantasy X is such a great story.

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kalistia@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Play it takes two with her! :)

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idunnololz@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What remains of Edith finch.

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AMillionNames@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The Stanley Parable What Remains of Edith Finch Anything from D’Avekki Studios Anything Telltale

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EssentialCoffee@midwest.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Have you asked her if there are any games she would be interested in watching? If there’s a game I want to see the story of but am not interested in playing it myself, I ask my husband to play it. (BioShock, Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, shooters or platformers in general). I usually help with puzzles or give input on dialogue options if I want to.

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Ludrol@szmer.info ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
“Baba is you” the game induces the “ah-a” moment when you just came up with a solition to the puzzle. The player has perfect knowledge about the state of the game but they don’t know the solution. I could be played with two heads and one controller.

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- Malix@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  imo, the funniest part of the game is listening to the player(s) repeatedly stating things from the game like cavement.
  
  “baba is you, rock is push, water is sink… what? ok ok, rock is float… AARGH”
  
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  - boringbisexual@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I like the low ominous sound when you accidentally erase yourself.
    
    “Ah, but what if baba is key? Oh…oh no”
    
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Candelestine@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Persona 5 is fun to watch someone else play. Kinda rare for an rpg, I think it’s the music and artistic style.

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Redonkulation@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Any RPG with dialogue and choices. Bonus points for custom characters or male/female options.

Before my girlfriend got into games, I would often play a new game with her and ask her to design the create-a-character and ask for her input on dialogue choices. Sometimes we would take turns reading aloud in game text and documents.

She eventually bought herself a switch and blasted out 500 hours of animal crossing during the pandemic lockdown and now she is all in on games.

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chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
youtube.com/@GirlfriendReviews?si=C2G7C2mqC1oAiSC…

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msbeta1421@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The Spider-Man games on PS5 have great storytelling.

Cyberpunk 2077

God of War and God or War Ragnarok

I believe both of these have settings that can reduce the “bloodiness”

Destiny 2…… lmao j/k
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MooseGas@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Subnautica maybe.

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Sigmatics@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Ori and the Black Forest

Trine

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Theharpyeagle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Possibly puzzle games like Return of the Obra Dinn or Antichamber where she can help solve things without needing to play. Portal may be good, too, though it may be hard to play along without control of the camera.

Also, though they’re not necessarily good stories, Supermassive Games stuff (Until Dawn and The Quarry) bring all the fun of watching cheesy horror movies together with the added bonus of controlling who dies!

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