Puzzle games to play as a family.

August 17, 2024 6:14 PM

The whole family had enormous fun playing Gorogoa together. Just one of us holding the controller and the whole family calling out and arguing what to do. We had similar fun with Chants of Sennaar. Are there other games like this that we can play together like this?

Far: Lone Sails and Far: Changing Tides were pretty fun this way, too. But Gorogoa and Chants of Sennaar were great.

We only have a nintendo switch.

posted by derbyshire to Computers & Internet (23 answers total)

Maybe The Return of the Obra Dinn? My (late teen/college age) kid and I played both Obra Dinn and Chants together and had a fantastic time. Obra Dinn has a very different vibe; there are some gruesome and creepy elements, if that's a factor for younger family members. I think Obra Dinn was about as long as Chants of Sennaar. I'd also tentatively suggest The Sexy Brutale, which despite the name does not have much sexiness, though the mystery at the center of it has some sadness/trauma . It's been several years since I played Sexy Brutale, so TBH I don't recall some of the specifics; apologies in advance if it's not the right sort of game.

(edited to clarify a sentence)
posted by Janta at 6:52 PM on August 17

I love these games! Like metroidvania/search action games, but gated by knowledge instead of progress. These both have significant non-puzzle elements, but how about Outer Wilds and Tunic? Tunic can be made very easy (invincibility) in the settings, but Outer Wilds has some tough jetpack platforming and spaceship handling. It’s exceptional though.

Agree on Obra Dinn. i’ll have to check out Gorogoa!
posted by supercres at 7:01 PM on August 17

Also The Talos Principle and The Witness. I hear good things about Heaven’s Vault too.
posted by supercres at 7:02 PM on August 17

I came across Obra Dinn and am very personally interested, but the youngest is 7 and might be frightened.
posted by derbyshire at 7:05 PM on August 17

Sorry, last comment: perhaps obvious but Tears of the Kingdom, and Mario Odyssey. Again, a lot of combat and platforming, but there’s a heavy puzzle element to each that works well with helpers. (Mario Odyssey has a clever second player helper mechanic.)
posted by supercres at 7:07 PM on August 17

How about Cyan games: Myst, Riven or Obduction? Myst and Riven in particular have very recent ports (the redone Riven from a few weeks ago also updated a lot of the puzzles). 7 years old seems like a perfect age to play through these with the family: exploring around interesting places, minimal plot/talking, nothing horrifying, cool machines, and tricky puzzles that sometimes require a bit of note-taking.
posted by ordinary_magnet at 7:17 PM on August 17

(Oh sorry, saw only too late you only have a Switch - in which case you can at least play RealMyst)
posted by ordinary_magnet at 7:19 PM on August 17

While I haven't played it I have watched Secret Sleepover Society stream it on Twitch, and I think you all might like There Is No Game
posted by phunniemee at 7:21 PM on August 17

Because of my disability, this is exactly how I play games, too! -- i.e. my partner with the controller, me calling out what to do. I tend to find that point-and-click adventure games and puzzle games work well, rather than anything with a lot of clicking/reaction time/action, because you can directly call out choices (which the player can execute directly) and the "watchers" don't miss out on any gameplay aspects.

You might want to try the search term "adventure game," by the way. It's a weirdly generic term, but seems to be what's used to describe point-and-click-style puzzle games.

Some 7-year-old-friendly recommendations:

Broken Age -- This one is like a Pixar movie come to life as an adventure game! It's a space fantasy adventure with puzzles and loads of very, very funny dialogue. (Some of the end puzzles are a bit too challenging for a young kid on their own, but if you have an adult playing it's easy to look up walkthroughs, and totally worth it for the great story.)

Creaks -- If you liked Gorgoroa's art, this one is absolutely gorgeous, too: hand-drawn visuals and everything. It's a puzzle game that tells a story through its art.

Machinarium -- Same makers as Creaks. Honestly anything from Amanita Games would work well, but I don't think they're all on the Switch. (I bought them on iPhone and screencast them to my TV.) They are all kid-friendly, but also very evocative, surreal, and artistic.

Carto -- Puzzle game featuring a unique map-pieces mechanic. Beautiful, cute art and a little story, but easy to play in sections.

The Gardens Between -- Dreamlike puzzle game with a hard-to-describe but very cool spatialized time mechanic. Themes of childhood and friendship.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 7:44 PM on August 17

Perhaps…Moncage or Behind the Frame. Looker is available on Mac/PC on Steam.
posted by oceano at 8:41 PM on August 17

The folks who made Machinarium and Creaks, mentioned above, also made Samarost (1, 2, and 3) and Botanicula - both are really fun, family-friendly, and visually stunning puzzle games.

Also, Lumino City is wonderful.
posted by marlys at 9:14 PM on August 17

Oops, sorry, none of the ones I just mentioned are on Switch, they’re app games.

Switch-wise, my family had a blast playing Untitled Goose Game together.
posted by marlys at 9:18 PM on August 17

In general, this is a great way to play almost any puzzle game or adventure game, where most of the information is on screen and players can talk it out. The big constraint, actually, is finding something that'll work for the 7-year-old and is on the Nintendo Switch - a lot of the examples I can think of off the top of my head are definitely a little too much for 7-year-olds (Oxenfree, Ace Attorney, Life is Strange), or never got a port to the Switch.

Seconding the recommendation for Myst, which is on Switch as realMyst: Masterpiece Edition. A Riven remake came out recently but it's not on Switch. Obra Dinn is very good but I wouldn't put a 7-year-old in front of it - there's a fair amount of death, and also a bit of nudity (there are mermaids). If the kid gets a little older, I would recommend Ghost Trick, but the nature of the story is that there's a lot of violence, even if you're trying to undo those deaths.

In terms of age-appropriate recommendations, in decreasing order of recommendation:

• Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is an obvious recommendation.
• I think Outer Wilds might fit the bill; it's about a charming alien adventurer who sets off in a wooden rocketship to explore its solar system and uncover the secrets of their alien precursors. There's a couple of kind of scary bits where you have to avoid being noticed by massive space eels, but the 7-year-old can just let the adults do that bit. (Be warned that there's a similarly named game called The Outer Worlds that came out at the same time.)
• It turns out the Portal games are on Switch, so look into those.
• A Little To The Left is a game about working out how to tidy up.
• And, of course, there's always Picross - there's like 6 or 7 Picross games on Switch now?
• Storyteller is a game about putting fairy tale moments in the right order, in part by discovering what happens if you ever after happily.
• Patrick's Parabox is a block-pushing game where sometimes, there are levels in the boxes. It's pretty trippy. If you want something harder...
• Baba Is You might work - it's a block-pushing puzzle game where all the rules of the puzzle are on-screen (and part of the puzzle, so if you separate WALL IS STOP then walls stop being walls - it spirals out into madness very quickly).
• Similar soft recommendation would be The Talos Principle - I think getting a proper view on the puzzle might be tricky but a lot of The Talos Principle is just staring at the puzzle trying to work out if what you're trying to achieve is even possible. It's a soft recommend because the story of The Talos Principle is very cerebral - you have full-on philosophical arguments about the nature of consciousness.
• If you have someone who's very good at games, Tunic miiiiight work? It's a game that starts off being a very tough action game very much like The Legend of Zelda, and then as the game goes on it reveals that it's got a very tricky puzzle at its core.)

It's a weirdly generic term, but seems to be what's used to describe point-and-click-style puzzle games.

it's actually named after a specific game, called Adventure (retroactively called Colossal Cave), and yeah it's weird how generic that name is. Unfortunately most of the Good Ones on Switch are either spooky, or murder mysteries.
posted by Merus at 11:08 PM on August 17

Mario vs Donkey Kong could work… there's no story to speak off, but there are switches to flip and platforms to traverse in the right order to complete the level.

My similar-aged kid has been playing it solo, but I think it would work for getting, um, 'suggestions' from the audience.
posted by demi-octopus at 12:24 AM on August 18

[[btw, this post has been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog!]]
posted by taz at 1:51 AM on August 18

> The Witness
the witness is a great puzzle game, but it does not appear to be released for the nintendo switch

Braid, an earlier puzzle game from the same developer/designer, is available for the switch. It's presented like a classic platformer - with a mario bros' vocabulary of jumping between platforms, and jumping on critters' heads, but it is about time manipulation puzzles, not dexterity. it's the kind of puzzle game where each zone is focused around a new mechanic, and the early levels are tutorials where you incrementally learn about the new mechanic, but you need to master / combine mechanics to pass the later, harder levels in each zone. it's fair.
posted by are-coral-made at 3:56 AM on August 18

Toki Tori 2 is an overlooked classic, I love it. Despite appearances it's not a platformer, it's a pure puzzle solving metroidvania.

Pilgrims is also by Amanita Design who made Creaks and Machinarium.

Baba Is You is a mind-bending puzzle game based around words, but it gets very difficult after a certain point.

I've just started The Case of the Golden Idol and it is great, but like Obra Dinn it's a bit dark and has a lot of death and murder.
posted by riddley at 4:55 AM on August 18

Botany Manor is a nice little puzzle game where you solve clues to grow plants.
posted by Teadog at 5:23 AM on August 18

BABA IS YOU and Patrick's Parabox have already been mentioned.

Along those brain-bending lines, I also suggest Manifold Garden, Hyperbolica and 4D Golf.
posted by JHarris at 3:27 PM on August 18

Wow. This is a treasure trove of recommendations! Looking at trailers, a lot of these work.

We started Moncage based on this list of games "like" Gorogoa and it seems to be directly informed by Gorogoa (except for the visual art). The music is uncannily similar.
posted by derbyshire at 6:27 PM on August 18

My kids played the Portal games in this way and they loved them!
posted by Samarium at 4:49 AM on August 19

(hey if this is in the sidebar and people other than the asker are reading this, I also want to recommend Lorelei and the Laser Eyes to any adults - it's on Switch, but unless your 7-year-old is a fan of mid-century European cinema, Twin Peaks and Silent Hill, it's very much not for them. It's a game about an artist who's invited to a hotel in the 60s by an erratic filmmaker, and gets caught up in a web of illusions, computers and a one-man war against capitalism.)
posted by Merus at 9:50 PM on August 19

We love these types of games. I'd second Untitled Goose game and add Little Kitty Big City and A Short Hike
posted by advicepig at 11:11 AM on August 20