Nothing says ‘friends’ like shouting obscenities and pointing fingers at each other.
First, they’ll forgive you. That’s what friendships are about. Second, it’s your obligation to illuminate their flaws. You know, so they can be better gamers. And not in some cool, calm cult-leader way to break down self-esteem, take names and drain bank accounts. No, good old heat-of-the-moment WTF ARE YOUR DOING explosions of frustration.
If that sounds like fun, grab a copy of Unrailed. It’s a deceptive-looking game with a very simple premise. All you have to do is build a railroad from one station to another. Hear that, guys? That’s all we have to do! A railroad! WHAT’S SO DIFFICULT ABOUT THAT?!
*breathe*
It’s not necessarily their fault that I’m stuck on the wrong side of the train, that we’re not manufacturing railway pieces fast enough, or that the train is on fire. That last bit is my fault. I should be cooling it with water. But we’re running out of track. Damnit, I am not going down with this project! I have my railroad construction career to think of!
Seriously, though, Unrailed is really fun. The gameplay comes down to cutting down trees and rocks, adding the material to a specific cart, then stacking manufactured railway pieces ahead of the constantly-moving train. It’s a clever puzzle experience that works best with four players. Three might pull it off. I have no idea how you’d do it with two or less players. Collaboration is key, and if you pull it off the game becomes very rewarding.
Why else play collaborative co-op games?
The genre has become very popular in the past decade. Though I’m sure I’m missing some classics, the oldest that comes to mind is Portal 2’s multiplayer. It quickly overshadowed the single-player experience with clever puzzles and the series’ trademark dry humour. But the real payoff was playing with a friend and needing to cooperate to finish a level. This wasn’t parallel play, like two babies doing their own thing next to each other. Unless both players coordinated their actions, you died somewhere in an Aperture Science basement.
Some classic games came close to the idea. The 1992 side-scroller Lost Vikings had players jump between three different characters, working collectively to get past obstacles. Years later, the Trine games picked up this torch and added multiplayer. You cycle through the three characters, combining their abilities to avoid tricky traps and solve puzzles.
I’m particularly fond of the Trine games (except for the misguided third one that takes a detour into 2.5D gameplay). The normal games support up to 3 players, and Trine 4 ups that to four in its unlimited mode. Unlike Unrailed, Trine inspires sympathy for your fellow players’ poor platformer timing.
Collaborative co-op brings out the best and worst in us. But maybe you don’t want to really help. Let others do the work and, if the mood strikes, grab them by the head and throw them off a nearby edge.
I suspect this was the vision behind Human Fall Flat, a game that totally does not need all the players it supports. While one or two people try to solve the puzzles in this quirky physics platformer, the rest just run around. Some try to help, but just get in the way. Others see if they can pick up players and throw them off the level.
Just like your project at work, three-quarters of the people involved are useless. But unlike real life, it’s more fun with them on board. Human Fall Flat creates a general atmosphere of collaborative incompetence by making the characters quite clumsy. The best description is to imagine a drunk toddler running around inside a potato sack. Curiously, kids are better at this game than adults, and Human Fall Flat is often disregarded as a kids game. But it’s great for all ages and has a lot of unique levels to blunder through.
A column about hardcore collaborative games isn’t complete without It Takes Two. I almost left it out because I’ve not played it yet (I’m cheap and waiting for a good price). But it deserves a mention because you need two people to play it: take the roles of two estranged parents who get miniaturised when their kid makes some strange wish for them to get along. Couldn’t he ask for a bike instead of marital bliss? It’s gained a reputation for being excellent, and you only need one copy – a special friend’s pass lets the second player install a copy on their machine.
That’s quite a gamble – a game that must have two players. Not many do that (though the We Were Here series comes to mind). At one point, I feared co-op might go extinct. Now we’re getting spoiled for choice. The only risk now is that I will run out of friends before I finish all these games. But, damnit, they need to learn how to build railroads.