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Electric Challenge #13 asks is to talk about games we like playing with others. Which can be hard, sometimes, when you're a fan of genres that are one-player games, specifically for not having that many friends to play games with for a significant part of your life.
So a lot of the multiple-player games were first Atari stuff with family, and those were usually alternating between players, rather than together at the same time. (Although I think Atari Space Invaders had a mode where the two players shared the same screen space and the same number of lives, so some amount of play together was possible) Then into the Nintendo and Sega era, there was some Sonic 2 (which allowed a second player to control Tails) and some Mortal Kombat and some Mario and those things, but then came university, and that was basically just Smash Brothers of various forms (and a few Dreamcast 2D fighting games) for multi-player options. Past that, in the times where I was establishing work and that, most multi-player would be Mario Party, Mario Kart, and some amount of shooting zombies and the game that came with the gun peripheral for the Wiimote. But that's also the time where I had someone specifically telling me that they felt I was only having fun at games while I was winning. And no matter how many different ways I tried to explain it (that involve fairness, mechanics, and honesty), it never actually got through, best I could tell. (This was also the person that I had to cede navigation duties to regarding playing Katamari together, because I kept believing that after doing the stage together a few times along the same general path that I wouldn't have to explicitly say "turn left. Go to the trumpets. Turn right. Turn around and get more of the rocks." and narrate every action that needed to happen. And who I think might have been jealous that I could achieve better synergy with a sibling on that regard, since we have both played the game and know what the underlying assumptions are, than in all the explicit communication that had to be done between us.)
Anyway, after that relationship stopped, what I've been doing most at this point has been playing the Jackbox Party Packs and things like Ultimate Chicken Horse or Move or Die with family and current partner, which is mostly an excuse to talk and be witty and show off the amount of useless knowledge we've collected over time. (And yeah, that bit about "having fun when you win" came back, but family, at least, understands and accepts when you say it's not about winning, it's about "oh goodness, I did know the answer to that, why did I pick this other option?" and "this game really relies on a lot of luck, and that's kind of annoying," rather than "I'm only happy playing this game when I'm winning the game," which is really not true.
The other major multi-player thing is the occasional Smash for Switch with the teenagers and the occasional "let's talk and walk and catch Pokémon on the days there are rare variations about!" with some other friends. So there's not really anything that I think of as the supreme thing to do with friends, but I've got a few things that are pretty nice.
So a lot of the multiple-player games were first Atari stuff with family, and those were usually alternating between players, rather than together at the same time. (Although I think Atari Space Invaders had a mode where the two players shared the same screen space and the same number of lives, so some amount of play together was possible) Then into the Nintendo and Sega era, there was some Sonic 2 (which allowed a second player to control Tails) and some Mortal Kombat and some Mario and those things, but then came university, and that was basically just Smash Brothers of various forms (and a few Dreamcast 2D fighting games) for multi-player options. Past that, in the times where I was establishing work and that, most multi-player would be Mario Party, Mario Kart, and some amount of shooting zombies and the game that came with the gun peripheral for the Wiimote. But that's also the time where I had someone specifically telling me that they felt I was only having fun at games while I was winning. And no matter how many different ways I tried to explain it (that involve fairness, mechanics, and honesty), it never actually got through, best I could tell. (This was also the person that I had to cede navigation duties to regarding playing Katamari together, because I kept believing that after doing the stage together a few times along the same general path that I wouldn't have to explicitly say "turn left. Go to the trumpets. Turn right. Turn around and get more of the rocks." and narrate every action that needed to happen. And who I think might have been jealous that I could achieve better synergy with a sibling on that regard, since we have both played the game and know what the underlying assumptions are, than in all the explicit communication that had to be done between us.)
Anyway, after that relationship stopped, what I've been doing most at this point has been playing the Jackbox Party Packs and things like Ultimate Chicken Horse or Move or Die with family and current partner, which is mostly an excuse to talk and be witty and show off the amount of useless knowledge we've collected over time. (And yeah, that bit about "having fun when you win" came back, but family, at least, understands and accepts when you say it's not about winning, it's about "oh goodness, I did know the answer to that, why did I pick this other option?" and "this game really relies on a lot of luck, and that's kind of annoying," rather than "I'm only happy playing this game when I'm winning the game," which is really not true.
The other major multi-player thing is the occasional Smash for Switch with the teenagers and the occasional "let's talk and walk and catch Pokémon on the days there are rare variations about!" with some other friends. So there's not really anything that I think of as the supreme thing to do with friends, but I've got a few things that are pretty nice.
