My heart is being torn by you youngest daughter who seems to be disappearing into a hole of depression because of C-19. She’s 13 and should be out doing the hints that I probably wouldn’t want to hear about, instead she’s spending all her time in her bedroom in the dark.

Thankfully she has agreed to spend some time after tea with mum and dad so I thought it might be therapeutic to get a two layer game for the Xbox- something mildly competitive where you’re both on screen at the same time. Hi honking maybe a shoot ‘m up but not COD or GTA – something appropriate and light hearted. Or anything else??

I’d welcome your suggestions. Thanks in advance from a sad dad.

Rocket League. Hotshot Racing. NHL (get an older version for peanuts). Golf With Your Friends.

Hope you bring her back to normality. Hopefully the lives of 13 yr olds will improve dramatically quite quickly.

Damn, somehting Nintendo/Mariokart would always be my first choice for the fun, the music and the colourfulness.

Xbox is a bit of a mystery for me, but Minecraft seems to be popular. You could maybe take it in turns to build stuff?

My daughter & I went retro and got a mini SNES…Super Mario, Streetfighter II, Mario Kart etc I actually stand a chance of competing!

Not two player, but Untitled Goose Game is worth a look – my son and I took turns to play it.

team up in apex legends

If you want Mario Kart (which is nintendo only, obv), Crash Bandicoot Racing is basically a clone of MK

There are some fantastic puzzle games that have fun two player mechanics. you MUST get Portal 2, which is much the same as portal 1, but has a two player option.

Also, Rayman Origins is great. 2D platformer at modern graphics point. Starts simple and gets impossibly hectic.

Any of the Lego games. There are stacks of them based on different movie franchises and they’re good fun to do two player co-op.

My 2 are spending a lot of time playing Plants vs Zombies 2.  I got if for them at Christmas as they wanted a shooter they could play together and I didn’t want them on CoD or similar.

I mostly play Fortnite and Minecraft with the kids (mine are almost-11 and 7).

Both require separate devices, rather than a shared screen, but I can play Minecraft on the iPad while they play on laptops. (That used to be an option for Fortnite too until Epic started suing Apple!)

I remember having fun with a frisbee golf game on PS3, using the move controllers – there were other games too, that was good for multiplayer. Does Xbox have an equivalent?

Something that involves jumping about? Modern equivalent of wii sports or that dance one. Something you can look like a dick on and makes her laugh?

Cheers everyone, recommendations are greatly appreciated. Like the sound of frisbee golf, Plant vs Zombies and Portal 2.

Keep ‘em coming. Ta.

Pretty much played this niche version of Rocket League for the last year or so, fun yet strategical use of the powerups.

“Free To Play” these days from Epic store.

Portal 2 as mentioned.

Untitled Goose Game is worth a look – my son and I took turns to play it.

The new version (2?) is the same game but 2 player co-op – short game but well worth a blast.

Bomberman.

littlebigplanet is a lovely game for this kind of thing

The Lego games are really good and they have the advantage of being cooperative rather than competetive and I think some of the rehashed Sonic games are two player co-op as well. Games are a really good way of escaping the awfulness of the current situation and I hope your daughter gets well soon, depression can get right in the **** sea x

Bomberman

This, but be prepared to buy new controllers as they’ll be thrown against the wall fairly often 🤣 I love/hate Bomberman.

Fibbage on the JackBox Party Pack, available on steam. Great fun for everyone!

Unravel 2 is a lovely cooperative 2 player problem solving platformer on Xbox.
Guacamellee 2 and unruly heroes are a bit similar but with added fighting – Mexican wrestling or kung Fu.
Sonic racing is a bit like Mario kart on X box. There’s a team co-op version too.

^ Unravel 2 on the xbox game pass is brilliant and very adult and kid friendly. Can’t recommend enough.

If you want a split-screen shooter and she’s on the more mature side of 13, there’s always Borderlands. It’s rated 18 and quite sweary though.

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/game-reviews/borderlands

My 12yo son played through Dark Souls recently with me helping him (it’s not two player on the same console) and loved that. Somewhat counter-intuitive suggestion but it’s quite well known for helping people through dark times (seriously) because the theme is you never, ever, give up.

Thanks for that recommendation Garry_Lager – I’ll take a gander at it this evening.

A word to the wise, Dark Souls is fantastic but it is a notoriously difficult and unforgiving game. It’s not a game for a casual gamer or anyone with a penchant for defenestrating controllers.

Would also recommend overcooked 1 & 2. Really great coop game for up to 4 players on screen. Its both simple and really difficult to get all the order out at the same time.

Dark Souls: Git Gud. Sonic All Stars Racing is also reat fun in split screen. Also Unspottable is great, all on the same screen, very simple but infuriatingly good fun.

Dark Souls: Git Gud.

Exactly the message you want to be giving to a depressed 13 year old girl? You’re just not good enough?

Unravel 2 as mentioned above would be number 1 on my list. My daughter (9) and I have had a great time over 1/2 term playing. Superb graphics and needs lots of team work to solve the puzzles.

I’ve been playing Blockhead Theatre with my GF (not a gamer, but played a load of Prince of Persia on her Dad’s PC as a kid) through lockdown.
It’s brutally difficult in the later stages, but it’s quite funny and progresses nicely.

Overcooked 2 was less successful. Nearly caused a raging argument.

We’ve stuck a couple of hours into Biped, which is kind of fun.

I’m keen to give Hyper Light Drifter a go.

I’ll get flamed for this but in your situation I’d let her go and meet up with a couple of mates and be kid again a few times a week.

perchypanther
Free Member
Dark Souls: Git Gud.

Exactly the message you want to be giving to a depressed 13 year old girl? You’re just not good enough?

No it’s not, it’s also not a game I’d choose to play with a depressed 13 year old girl either. It’s notoriously difficult and also has some dark themes. Git Gud is pretty much a phrase that goes with the game. If you’ve played it you’ll realise that it’s difficulty puts a lot of people off, depressed or not.

Exactly the message you want to be giving to a depressed 13 year old girl? You’re just not good enough?

Very much this. There’s a time and a place for ferociously difficult games but this isn’t one of them.

Chess?

Git Gud is pretty much a phrase that goes with the game

Git gud is a phrase that really, really boils my piss.

It pretty much sums up why a lot of teenagers are depressed in the first place. Not just in relation to video games either.

The pressure on teenage kids to constantly assume that they should always somehow be better at everything is crushing for them.

I’ll second borderlands, great fun messing about.

Minecraft is loved by my 13yo daughter, she preferred building ever more impressive buildings but has now started building redstone devices (a mix between coding and being a sparky).

Terraria is another one she plays (although not as much) that is good team work fun.

Elite could work too, one of you flying the main ship the other in a turret/SLF mini fighter (loads of support in the stw player group).

Do any of her friends have a games console? As they could play together online which is possibly better for her again?

Minecraft..can split screen, or one on Xbox/ipad/laptop
Unravel 2 is BRILLIANT – me and my 6 year old play it..she calls it ‘stringy’!! Lovely game.
Rocket league – ace!
Crash team racing…is the best you can get that isn’t mariocart..
Teraria..like 2d mine craft

Puzzle games are good..can’t remember any!

I think the trouble is now, all teh best games are multiplayer via the web, rather than ‘old school sit in the same room and play’.

DrP

Very much this. There’s a time and a place for ferociously difficult games but this isn’t one of them.

DS isn’t near ferociously difficult. It just came out at a time when game design had gone too far down the road of hand-holding and subservience to the player, and it was an effective (and massively influential) antidote to that. It is unforgiving and not signposted, but gameplay is OK difficulty (in pve).

Anyhow it was just a different suggestion – sometimes explicit light-hearted and fun doesn’t connect with someone feeling down. But it is for sure a polarising game and not everyone’s cup of tea.

Git gud is a phrase that really, really boils my piss.

It pretty much sums up why a lot of teenagers are depressed in the first place. Not just in relation to video games either.

The pressure on teenage kids to constantly assume that they should always somehow be better at everything is crushing for them.

Git Gud at life is really, really hard. So getting good at Dark Souls is easy, comparatively speaking. Which is part of the reason why there’s a r/darksouls post every week of people saying how the game helped with their depression. The perseverance to not go hollow is the game’s theme and it’s clearly something that resonates with people.

My lad is inseparable from Fortnite (aged 10)

What about chess as in the real game?

Very interesting thing on Radio 4 the other day suggesting that computer game playing is helping many boys from avoiding depression in lockdown, where as because many girls dont play computer games, they have been suffering with depression.

Dark Souls is fantastic but it is a notoriously difficult and unforgiving game.

This.