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I wouldn’t call myself a gamer. I grew up with  SNES even though it was the late 90’s and early 00’s when I played. In middle school I liked play SIMS and puzzle type games on Yahoo Games. I still like app games, and my boyfriend reminds me that they ‘aren’t real games’ because there is no real strategy involved. He grew up with video games being a really significant and important part of his childhood. He still likes to play video games, and is pretty selective. When he likes a game he plays it a lot, instead of buying a wide range of games. For the past few years, he’s played more of the Dark Souls series than anything else.

We like trying to find video games that are entertaining enough for him to stay invested, yet not too hard to make me want to quit in frustration. We have five games that we’ve played together more than any others.

Co-op Games For Couples:

1. Civ 3. This is a pretty outdated game but it’s one that Ryan and I have put a lot of hours into. We’ve tried Civ 4, and he’s played it on his own a bit but it was too complex for me. So, we stick with the old version. It requires strategy, but him having practice on it made it possible for him to help me out until I learned the ropes.
2. Donkey Kong. I have a lot of nostalgia for this game, even though I only got to the second “world” as a kid. Honestly, I still find this game hard at times but because I was nostalgic for it, we have fun playing it together.
3. Super Mario. I have nostalgia for this game too, as do most people around our age. It is another one that I can’t play through til the end as it gets too frustratingly hard at some point, but we can enjoy it for quite a while together.
4. Don’t Starve Together. Ryan plays this in single-player, and we enjoy playing the multiplayer version as well. There was a bit of a learning curve on this game, but with his help early on I quickly grew to master the basics and now we build independent games to play against each other. We’ve put in more time on this game than any other!
5. Factorio. I like logic or puzzle based games like Sudoku and word searches, among others. Ryan finds basic puzzles boring. I enjoy factorio because it sometimes feels like a puzzle, but he’s able to get immersed enough in the “world” where it doesn’t seem like just a puzzle.

Do you play video games with your boyfriend or girlfriend who isn’t a gamer? Leave your suggestions for games in the comments below!