[kule]

FYI some games my son has enjoyed that had reasonable difficulty and/or co-op so we can play together:

* Super Mario Odyssey

* Sackboy: A Big Adventure

* Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

* Paw Patrol Games (gameplay maybe a bit too simple though)

* Overcooked 1 & 2

* Untitled Goose Game

* Ultimate Chicken Horse

* Astro's Playroom

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Captain Toad is on my radar. Overcooked is nice for like... the first hour, then my brain goes mushy because it's too repetitive and my daughter goes into panic mode because it gets too fast, lol.

Super Mario Odyssey was good early on, but now she gets bored because it's too easy to play as the hat. If she plays as mario, it's too boring for myself, but playing by herself is still too challenging.

The other ones, I will try! Paw Patrol is indeed too easy, she played harder games with me (we played together Sundered, which is metroidvania coop, quite hard for myself too) and I was keeping an eye on it and determined she would learn anything new from it.

It's particularly challenging to find for kids "hard but not frustrating" because their frustration meter is quite lower than that of an adult.

[kule]

Yeah I know what you mean there’s surprisingly few games that hit the sweet spot. The latest sackboy is probably the best one I’ve played in that you both get to play a full character (ie no boring cappy), it drops extra lives like a sieve if someone isn’t doing very well, so the adult can usually get you both through a tough level and there’s plentiful checkpoints. It does get hard towards the end game but there’s a lot of content before then.

I originally thought super mario would be good but the older ones are surprisingly hard for younger players. Although that reminds me Super Mario 3D World / Bowsers Fury is pretty good for co-op too if you’ve not tried it yet.

I’ll also mention its worth playing any game with a builder, my son loves building his own tracks in track mania turbo for instance.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Thank you, this is really good input. I evaluated the builder but haven't found anything that would hook my daughter, she gets caught in the "full freedom" thing and regresses to "I'll just go around" mode.

SUper Mario 3D world looked good, but I was afraid after the Odyssey experience, I'll put that on my wishlist.

I'll check sackboy, never heard that game!

EDIT: I see, it's playstation only, I'm cut out of that. PC or Switch in this home, and it was a big sacrifice bringing a Switch in (I'm against consoles in their current form and try to vote with my wallet against them. Steam Deck is a good compromise)

[kule]

Super Mario 3D World is more like Sackboy so you’ll probably enjoy that, 3D world is more typical Mario levels, then Browsers Fury is more free form/open world platforming - both have you in control of full characters though.

RE Sackboy - keep an eye out Sony seem to have relented and are releasing their games on PC now so it’ll probably appear at some point.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I am indeed keeping an eye out (I have a wishlist that spans any platform). Especially Sackboy and Returnal seems like good candidate.

Returnal for myself, obviously ;)