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[Nillo]

I used to play Spiral Knights frequently with my boyfriend, and we found it to be an enjoyable, light-hearted experience. It has a cute art style and the emotes like /hug and /sniff were especially fun for us to use on each other. The game grows repetitive after a while, but we enjoyed it while it lasted and I've been looking for something else that captures the same good feelings.

Basically what I'm looking for is something cute and cheerful that can be played with one other person online, offers plenty of ways to interact with that person, and has enjoyable gameplay. We have a preference for animal cuteness (think Mimigas and Pokemon) rather than cute human characters, so keep that in mind. Also if it has chiptunes (or similar electronic music styles) then that is a big plus.

I've been thinking about getting Critter Crunch since it seems to fit most of the above criteria. If you've played it, I'd like to hear what you think about it, especially so if you played it co-op.

[SirNiko]

I haven't played it in a while, but Leap Day was cutesy, fun, and definitely good for multiplayer.

http://www.leapdaygame.com/

The game is most easily described as multiplayer Spacechem. You either start or join a game in progress then work together to build a huge machine to allow anthropomorphic flan to build and sell goods to earn money to buy bigger machines. To win the game you and the other players (a total of four to eight) must build a machine that builds a specific set of goods and delivers them to the towers for the boss.

The multiplayer aspect comes in since trading goods to another player causes you to both earn money for the sale (so selling a $100 rock by yourself earns only you $100, whereas trading it to another player who sells it earns $100 for each, plus a bonus). It also gives you more space to build more complex machines and more quickly build expensive goods to sell. So, the game is strictly cooperative. Everyone wins together, and there's never a benefit to sabotaging another player.

The only downside is that matches go on for days (that is, games have a time limit of a few days and it takes most of that time to win) so it's a game you play for a bit, try to make the best machine you can within your budget, then leave the game alone for a while so you can come back later and improve your machine with your bigger budget. If you're looking for something to play actively for some time and then put down, it will not deliver.

Then again, it's F2P (financed by buying inventory slots and custom avatars) so you don't have anything to lose.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

I'd like some suggestions too. For a SO who likes cute stuff as well but inside is very competitive.

Nillo, is your SO into video games at all? Not at all? Played them when they were a kid? My SO played them when she was a kid. I learned this when I was utterly destroyed after I dug my SNES out of storage and got destroyed. So take these suggestions with that background in mind.

What worked for me was the 2 player mario for NDS (cant remember the name), PixelJunk Monsters, Mario Kart and Heavy Rain. Mind you Heavy Rain was obviously a wanting to watch me play experience. There are more but I have to ask. I can't remember.

[Nillo]

I'd like some suggestions too. For a SO who likes cute stuff as well but inside is very competitive.

Nillo, is your SO into video games at all? Not at all? Played them when they were a kid? My SO played them when she was a kid. I learned this when I was utterly destroyed after I dug my SNES out of storage and got destroyed. So take these suggestions with that background in mind.

What worked for me was the 2 player mario for NDS (cant remember the name), PixelJunk Monsters, Mario Kart and Heavy Rain. Mind you Heavy Rain was obviously a wanting to watch me play experience. There are more but I have to ask. I can't remember.

He plays video games, yeah! But mostly it's just singleplayer platformers like Lyle in Cube Sector and VVVVVV. Which is fine with me but I'd like to play something *with* him and pixely platformers generally aren't the best for that purpose.

It's a long distance relationship as he's from Georgia and I live in Sweden, so we're limited to online games for now, but I'll take at look at all the games mentioned in this thread and see if they work for us.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

Ah a long distance thing. I think none of my suggestions work then.

Maybe Minecraft, it's banned at my house due to entire days going missing playing that game heh.

I'll have to check out Spiral Knights.

[Netsu]

Magicka is amazing in co-op and playable over the internet. It's lighthearted and offers a lot of hilarious interaction between players in the form of combining spells but otherwise doesn't fit your style that much.

The new Rayman games seem perfect, but those are local co-op only unfortunately.

[Jonathan Burroughs]

I played some Battleblock Theatre with my other half over the weekend. In fact we played so much we burnt out on it slightly. Still, we did have fun with it.

[Eljugganot]

My girl and I played Black Ops 2 zombies as our first gaming experience together, which went so-so.

Afterwards, we played Super Meat Boy, which she promptly fell in love with. Just try a bunch of different things...

[clockwrk_routine]

Brothers A Tale of Two Sons, I played it with a friend and really enjoyed the experience thinking my gf would love it

[forwardresent]

It doesn't fit all of the specifications but Terraria or Starbound might be good. When my GF and I first got together we played a lot of Terraria. Starbound might be a bit of a better choice but I've not really played it.

[saibot216]

I used to play Carmageddon with my ex. The fact that he had that game made me love him even more.

[forwardresent]

This is a free sort of MMO where you play a Deer, so I think it fills the animal criteria. Maybe you can fight other Deer or something, and do like other Deer things. I'm not sure if it's much more than like a Deer chat room. It's a Tale of Tales game so it's probably more about the wonder of the experience than Deer on Deer griefing.

http://tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/

[GeoffW]

Well I'm not sure it exactly matches your criteria (I think it will be local co-op) but I'm looking forward to Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime.

[Faust06]

Earth Defense Force. Trust me.

[Mauricio Gomes]

I had a SO that really, really, really loved to play Kirby Super Star and Top Gear with me

Sadly my current SO is not much into multiplayer (she likes to play match 3 and traditional card games, and sometimes tetris... no racing, or platforming... )

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

I had a SO that really, really, really loved to play Kirby Super Star and Top Gear with me

was about to say -- do some googling and get online-friendly versions of Zsnes and MAME.

[Chromanoid]

Secret of Mana
Rayman Legends
Editions of Anno, Civilization, Age of Empires, Settlers, Warcraft, Diablo, Dungeon Siege...
World of Warcraft

Be aware: "If you can't enjoy it alone, you'll never enjoy it with someone else." is true for so many things... (edit: nonsense)

[Schoq]

Be aware: "If you can't enjoy it alone, you'll never enjoy it with someone else." is true for so many things...

I find this is untrue for games close to 100% of the time though. The enjoyment of almost any game is enhanced by playing it multiplayer, even "pass the controller" style.

[Muz]

Be aware: "If you can't enjoy it alone, you'll never enjoy it with someone else." is true for so many things...

You mean something with a single player campaign? MOBAs and FPS improve drastically with multiplayer.

[s0]

there are a lot of fun multiplayer games that are boring alone, such as:

diablo
gauntlet
dynasty warriors
mario party
most shooters
most beat em ups
99% of racing games
99% of fighting games