My partner and I make a point to occasionally play through a couch co-op game as well. Here are some of the things we enjoyed.
Phogs - Currently playing this. It’s a cute, dog-themed puzzle game thing, where you play as two heads of a single long dog-thing. We’re enjoying it, but we’re not particularly deep in, and I do wonder if it’ll get Ibb and Obb samey, but it’s worth checking out imo.
Cassette Beasts - Couch co-op, Pokemon inspired, adventure RPG with great storytelling, fantastic music and a retro aesthetic. The world is very Zelda-like in exploration and puzzle solving, while combat is Pokemon double battles. Highly recommended, just be aware that one player gets to be the player-made protagonist, while the other is one of an interchangeable series of partner characters.
Sea of Stars - The co-op update did a lot of good for this game. A Chrono Trigger inspired, faux-SNES era, indie RPG. There’s a lot of unvoiced dialogue, which I could see as being a barrier to enjoyment as a multiplayer game, but the game is paced quite well, so I don’t think it’s a huge problem. Also, players do take turns inputting commands, but everyone is responsible for the timed hits/blocks, and you each control a character of equal agency in the overworld, so it avoids the largest co-op turn based RPG folly of having one player and one half-watching “follower.” There are a ton of accessibility options/features (difficulty is VERY malleable), and as an added bonus, there’s a free story DLC coming on the 20th.
Children of Morta - This is perhaps the most “hardcore” of my list, but the girlfriend, despite explicitly not enjoying “hard” games, really really enjoyed this one. An action-RPG with some very light roguelike elements, Children of Morta has you play as a family of hunter-gatherer-warrior types in a fantasy world, working together to stop a malevolent power from corrupting the physical world. Each family member has a different playstyle, their own skill tree, and a lot of personality. The game is very story driven, with a few moments being taken between each run for the fantastic narration to drip feed the narrative, slowly teaching you more about the world, the characters, and their family dynamic.
These are the ones that came to the top of my mind, either because they were particularly good or, in the case of Phogs, is ongoing. If I see anything else worth mentioning when I look at my Steam list next, I’ll add.
That’s an interesting take. I found them to be very different people. Two different flavours of cliche’d anime protagonist, sure, but very different people none the less.
This one caught my eye as well. Split Fiction had a small section that played very similarly to this game, don’t want to spoil too much. It was fun, but I’m unsure if I want a full game about it.
Cassette Beasts
This one looks good for me heh :P
Sea of Stars
This one has been on my wishlist forever now, the mixed reviews have been turning me off. I’m not sure if these classic RPG games are her thing but we should try and figure it out.
Children of Morta
This one fell flat for me. I don’t know why, I didn’t connect with the game.
Damn. These are all really sick photos. I’ll have to add the UI Removal mod. I think I saw the one you’re talking about while googling if there is a photo mode
A lot of !cozygames and !lifesimulation games would fit. !otomegames are romance visual novels aimed at women interested in men and a lot would fit too.
!infinitynikki is an open world dressup game very marketed at women and has that soft pink color scheme, warning for being a F2P gacha game although you can progress without ever spending money. I usually avoid gacha but gameplay is legitimately good and “good gameplay,” “high budget,” and “for women” is a combination this game hits that I do not see too often in video games. (Other commenter is right there is a lot of girly shovelware.) There is combat, but it’s definitely not the main focus. Very soft and pink. You might also like Beglitched (DEFINITELY pink and soft), and Style Savvy for Nintendo DS. I have been meaning to play both of those so I can’t offer perspective on if they fill the romance ask, though Beglitched has combat. You might also enjoy Slime Rancher, also lots of pink and soft. Although it’s also not combat-free it’s not the main point either. Cattails was fun, kind of like Stardew but with cats instead, although as with Stardew combat does exist (though if I recall correctly it’s optional and not the main focus).
Now probably my recommendation least like what you are asking for: I love the Touhou Project series. Don’t let the male-dominated fandom and the tons of sexualized art of the characters fool you, the games don’t sexualize the characters at all—I would feel very comfortable showing them to a 5 year old or Grandma. It is basically a bunch of superpowered women from Japanese mythology/folklore shooting very pretty lasers at each other. The focus is actually combat here, but I figured I’d give it a mention. Not specifically aimed at women but it’s not not aimed at us either. Lovely music too.
My first Touhou game was on PC-9801, “The Highly Responsive to Prayers.” I think its the first Touhou game ever made? Not sure. I am not really much of an Outbreak or Arkanoid fan though, so I didn’t really care for it.
Then I tried “The Story of Eastern Wonderland,” which was extremely different from the previous game. I liked it more, but danmaku Shmup style games aren’t really my thing. They’re fine for a 30 minute stint, but I usually don’t play those kinds of games any longer than that.
I am sure Touhou has branched out since then, is there a Touhou game you might recommend that is different from those?
Most of the main series are shmups, but they have a few fighting games. I had a lot of fun with them! That would be Immaterial and Missing Power, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, and Touhou Hisoutensoku. There are more recent ones too, which I admit I have not tried: Hopeless Masquerade, Urban Legend in Limbo, and Antinomy of Common Flowers. Cool to have found a PC-98 player!
Don’t know if this fits the bill for you or not but my partner occasionally falls into the clutches of the Sims on their laptop. They’ve customized their installation with lots of outfit + hairstyle mods and expansions, so you kinda get to make it your own
I’ve heard a lot of good things about VA-11 Hall-A. Haven’t played it myself, but it looks like you play as a bartender in a cyberpunk-esque world and talk to the partons in your bar to get to know what’s going on in both the world and their personal lives
Weird recommends would be My time at Portia/Sandrock. They absolutely have combat, but have romance systems and a cuter aesthetic. Even the enemies are derpy/cute.
Split Fiction is peak, gonna be hard to beat. Too bad you can’t do ‘a way out’ it’s very well done. Might want to look into tweaks for those “unsupported” games, as many of them work fine. Unraveled 2 is a good example.
Otherwise, If this is something that is really becoming your thing, it might be time to hook your PC to the TV or invest in a console. If you go console, you additionally open up the world of games that require individual screens (crossplay games-you on steam deck screen and them on TV screen, but still sitting together OR you on pc and them on TV if same room).
Our couch coop at some points was me with my laptop on a stack of books on the coffee table while she was on a ps4. Played Aragami this way, for one.
They may seem silly, but there are a slew of Lego games that people get really into and are very impressive. Human Fall Flat also has some silliness, but good puzzles at times
I don’t know why I didn’t remember this. I do have a decent PC and the streaming functionality works quite well. I played Path of Exile 2 this way and it was great. Thanks for reminding me!
I’ll add Spiritfarer. It’s not “pink” per se, but it’s a much more “happy feelings” game. It’s about taking lost sould and ferrying them on your ship, talking to them about their lives and feelings, and you can give them hugs of course.
I finished the base game earlier today, doing the shivering isles now. It’s a great remaster, but it definitely needs a few updates. Performance and bugs aside, the balance of the game is all over the place and the difficulty options are broken. Expert is way too hard, adept is too easy. Luckily, modders already fixed a lot of things.
I highly recommend modding your game to improve a few things:
Ultimate Engine Tweaks improves performance at zero cost to graphics. It also helped significantly with stutters.
More Damage makes everything (including enemies) deal more damage. A must have imo because Bethesda’s school of spongy enemies is really outdated game design. 2x more damage on everything makes combat deadlier and more exciting.
P.S. there’s an “unofficial oblivion remastered patch mod” that claims to fix thousands of bugs, but in reality it makes the game more unstable and has its own issues. Don’t use it yet.
I have found that adept gets more balanced as you level up, I’m level 8 right now and I’ve had a few challenging fights. I had to reload before the arena fight with the twin bosmers because I simply cannot beat them. But yeah it is waay too easy at the start, which arguably is when it should be the most challenging.
Expert is just insane. Who ever plays in master really needs to get their head checked, I imagine fighting two enemies takes half an hour of hacking away while chugging stacks of health pots.
I have found that adept gets more balanced as you level up, I’m level 8 right now and I’ve had a few challenging fights.
A little over level 10 is where the game gets most difficult, then it quickly gets easier again. Once you have a powerful restoration spell you’re almost unkillable on adept.
Well I mean, you can choose not to use the powerful restoration spell. Especially with spell crafting you can create one that’s better tuned to the level of difficulty you like.
Imagine if conjuration summoned boss level npcs and you suddenly realize vanilla summoners can do the entire game in master because they’re summoning broken npcs.
I don’t remember these being particularly violent but maybe are worth a look:
Pit people
BattleBlock Theater
I also liked Moon Hunters and Children of Morta but those are harder.
Divinity Original Sin 1 is also good but definitely falls into the violent category. Its kind of goofy too so it could be worth considering. The second game + BG3 are significantly more violent and serious so are harder to recommend with that criteria.
Edit: hmm it seems the formatting is funky in Voyager, should be fixed now
I’ll add a +1 to Battleblock Theater! Such a well done game that can be true co-op or “co-op with shenanigans” if that’s more your vibe. The story is entertaining and lighthearted and the levels introduce new mechanics throughout.
+1 for the LEGO games. Sort of my go to sleeper pick for surprisingly good games. The humor is good, gameplay is decent though I have to go on big breaks between playing through one because gameplay game to game can be a bit samey.
I was doing a quest in Cheydenhal when the guards were leaving the barracks. All of them came out naked for some reason. After going into an inn and returning outside they were armored like they should have been.
bin.pol.social
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