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Husband and Wife Computer Games?
An Anonymous Coward asks: "I have a home network, and my wife and I each have our own computers (plus a few extra). My wife has a fear of computers, and uses hers as little as possible. In an attempt to get my wife in front of her computer more, I am looking for games we can play together. My question is, what networkable games out there appeal to the female gender? Quake-like games are definelty out. Too bad Sims isn't multi-player..." I've gotta echo the sentiment about the Sims not being multi-player, however lately I've noticed a few husband and wife couples out there on a few MMORPGs. Are any of you couples out there playing games together? If so, which ones?
My wife and I tend to play [together]:
- Anarchy Online (and formerly Everquest). She's really into AO now and plays even when I'm not around. Worth noting is that we 'hooked up' as a result of playing a MUD... geeks in love, indeed.
- Age of Empires/Kings. The only RTS that I've seen women play, with perhaps the exception of Starcraft.
The key here is that she likes to play cooperatively. We have never found a competitive game that we both liked. I'm seriously into FPS's and she won't touch them. Again, exception to the rule: Team Fortress Classic. She plays with me as a 2 person fireteam, we support each other well.
I must state for the record that my wife is a CS major, so we both come from a long history of single player games. She plays a significant amount more than I do!
- Zoldax
Although the poster says "no Quake" my girlfriend & I play Quake II together often. The fact that it will run (just) on a P133 is a bonus, because they are cheap to get hold of just to use as a Q2 machine ;-)
One thing I would suggest is to upgrade to v3.20 and then download one of the "co-operative" patches. In this way you play together against the baddies, rather than just killing each other.
Matt
I've been looking at the soon-to-be-released Monopoly Tycoon lately. Looks like just what you've been looking for :)
Cross between traditional Monopoly and Simcity.
My wife and I play freeciv on out network at home on weekends when we're not bogged down with homework.
It's even better, because I'll run a server here at my place, and friends of ours can join in across the internet. It's cross-platform to.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
We used to play Quake II a lot. We even managed to play Diablo I together for about 14 hours. We did get a networked Super Nintendo emulator (ZSNES) running and had some fun playing 2-player stuff on there. But now that we've got a kid running around, we can't both get 4-10 hours of uninterrupted gaming at the same time. So we primarily we play crap from Yahoo! Games like Pool, Blackjack and Hearts.
Oddly enough, Duke Nuke'm is a great choice. It has a simple interface (mouse and some keys) and the play is relatively simple. It's also not graphic-intense and that's one thing my wife really appreciates.
As another plus, my wife gets absolutely giddy when she puts an RPG round up my nose. Guess she appreciates being able to "kill" her husband every now and then. So long as it's never a real weapon, it's all good.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
Maybe your wife would enjoy strategy games like WarCraft. Playing networked WarCraft II was one of the first things my wife and I did together when we started dating. She likes to game, is good with computers already, but it certainly isn't a major hobby. Still after a few years together we still play WarCraft II every once in a while. (And if FreeCraft supports network gaming -- not sure -- you can even play under Linux!)
Just for some insight, what she likes about WarCraft II is two things:
First, that the graphics are kind of cute. Not tulips and roses cute, but cartoon cute.
And then, the fact that it's a real-time strategy. Just the right combination of real-time action and strategic planning.
You could also play on the same machine, but that's not nearly as geeky.
While they are rather simple games, games.yahoo.com have a wide selection of card games, board games, and some other games. They even have pool which is fun to play occasionally.
The downfall is that all the data has to go back to Yahoo's server even if you are playing on the same LAN. Not a big deal if you have broadband but if you are on dialup it is less than desired.
I think it's a bad idea to start them off on Quake, Diablo or any other 'real-time' game. For someone who is intimidated by computers, just using the computer is scary enough, let alone working out 20 key controls and definitely let alone trying to think and respond in real-time.
I think you should start on multiplayer non-confrontational games like those found on Yahoo Games (several people have already mentioned this).
I also highly recommend the Shockwave mini-golf games that can be found around the web (sorry, I'm at work otherwise I would provide a link). These are great because they are familiar, there is minimal time pressures, and the key controls are very simple.
Once they become comfortable with PCs, then you can move them onto more 'action' games.
My wife loves Heroes. She also dug Civilization. Both are Loki games.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
(MS) Hearts. No, I'm not kidding. It's simple since it's the same as playing it with real cards. This also makes it less intimidating. Allows the two of you to play against each other without having to track down two more people to play when you feel like it.
This assumes you have two windows computers, of course, I don't know if anyone's got a similar thing going for Linux/Mac/etc. Anyone else have suggestions for "simple games" where the computer can fill in for missing people?
"This message is composed of 100% recycled electrons."
thisis a very nice linux boardgame. It's not real-time and has a very simple user interface. It's networked and can be played with 2-4 players.
IRL this is one of my favorite games and me and my friends now play it over internet from time to time.
I hope you like it,
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
Simple game, she probably already knows the play, and it can be fun yet competitive.
Plus, it's got extremely low requirements, so you can put it on all the machines and invite some friends over.
I highly recomend Underlight. It takes the multiplayer and online aspects which you seem to be looking for and ontop of that is completely cooperative and interactive. Many women play the game as well as many couples who like it because you are able to advance and play the game with social interaction as opposed to hack and slash, kill the badens.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but in my experience it all depends on the girl. I've known girls who love FPS and the like and hated games like the Sims. I'm not saying that they're all like that, but I think it'd be a mistake to try to find a "girly" game for your wife/gf when it could be she actually would like the same games you do. You also have to realize that some girls just won't like any games no matter what you get them to try. On a side note though, Civ III is coming out next month, so if you want her obsessed with a game, that'd be the one to show her. :)
Keep Austin Weird!
Same story here. I don't know other women who play RTS, but my wife will do Total Annilihation, especially in multiplayer team mode.
We actually make a good team; I tie up opponents with constant harrassment while she sits off in a corner playing a building game. Eventually, I say, 'Um, dear, I could really use some help now.' She says, 'Oh, right, other players.' and sends over a massive force from her heavily fortified base, laying waste to all in her path.
What a girl.
:)
I'd give one of the WORMS games a try. It's fun, has cartoonish graphics, and isn't too hard to get a handle on how to play. Besides, it's a very creative little game. You can probably download a demo version if you'd like.
Or, Worms World Party will allow the LAN games you're looking for.
that along with not being a big busted half clad action chic. My wife plays a lot of diablo 2 and diablo. I think she could get into EQ or Dark Age of Camelot. She doesn't really like RTS or FPS. Ironically, she really likes street fighter and tekken.
:)
I have yet to see a real trend though. I know one girl who loves tomb raider (decidedly big busted action chic). It might be totally random.
I introduced my wife to diablo and I didn't think she was going to like it. one day I went for a nap and woke up to her swearing because she had gotten to the butcher for the first time. Remember that? Anyhow, I think there is something that says it must be unacceptable or something because I think she felt she needed to hide it a little bit. Now she's the one who encourages weekends of sitting at home and playing long long sessions of gaming and not going out til sunday afternoon for groceries and screaming in pain as the sunlight hits your eyes for the firs ttime in 2 days
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
i was the wife who was afraid of computers a few years (oh, it seems like a lifetime!) ago. i thought he was insane and the whole computer thing was 1) too hard, 2)scary and 3) a massive waste of time and money. but i wanted my husband to be happy so i smiled and tried to listen while my eyes glazed over when he raphsodized over the mysterious inner workings of this ugly box sitting in my living room.
what brought be around was when we when he snagged a little desktop publishing program. cheesy clipart, zillions of fonts, all that crap. suddenly, i could see some fun and productive stuff i could do with it. (ok, well productive is perhaps a bit of a stretch--our first project was writing a christmas newsletter. but it was fun and we did it together.)
eventually, he also got some "cute" games like bubble bobble and rainbow island, and we played them together. we raced for the little goodies that dropped down as we played. i never felt pressured or pushed, but he just put that computer out there and made sure there was stuff on it i liked and was interested in--money management programs, word processing programs, desktop publishing programs, that kind of thing. he was there in a flash anytime i had a problem with the computer, and made sure it was fixed pronto and i didn't end up feeling foolish for "messing something up." later on i started to get intereted in the internet, and he got me a copy of frontpage and some graphics programs. i made some butt-ugly webpages and had a good time with it.
and gradually, slowly, i started to become more and more comfortable with it. now we play baulder's gate together a lot, and in the past we've spent time playing diablo--i also like the sims. i'm also a web developer now, so i've clearly gotten over my fear of machines.
so i would say, get your wife some stuff she would be interested in and don't start off with the involved games, which may not appeal to her in the beginning and may require more of a commitment to learning how to play than she's initially interested in. the computer is intimidating when you're first starting out because it can make you feel stupid.
so, to sum up: find things to put on the computer that can make her life easier and more fun. with games, start off with very simple and cute games, and make sure she knows that you value the interaction with her more than the gameplay itself. go slowly and don't push her. support her efforts to do things independently on the computer (and if she screws something up, fix it goodnaturedly). and after you've spent some time doing something together on the computer, let her know you've enjoyed doing it with her. feeling closer to my husband after we'd spent time working on something together on the computer was the most powerful positive reinforcement i could have gotten.
My gf wasn't much of a computer user/gamer at all. But recently I got her hooked on d2 where we played coop. She played a paly and put most of her skill points into auras. I had two characters. the first was another paly who put skills into the opposite type of aura.. She was defensive, mine more offensive/healing. This worked until I came home one day and saw that she had leaped well beyond that character by quite a few levels. So I switched to the Barbarian who was further along and could keep up with her. We finished that and the exp pack together in the wee hours of the morning. She has taken to dueling my brother online and enjoys collecting his ears.
She has also picked up tribes. I think she liked the multiplayer aspect of it. Where she can help out not so much with the getting the flag, but doing what she can on defense, and doing basic repairing/turrent farming. This too she plays quite a bit when I'm gone.
I think she has taken to both of these games because of the multiplayer aspects. Neither games are too terribly difficult. We look forward to playing Baldur's Gate 2 together when we get the chance.
Bad Part about it all:
Having to buy another desk because yours is being taken over to play tribes.
Having to buy another computer so she can get her frame rate up.
Coming home to complaints about team killers, and lag.
Side note. These games also helped her learn linux. After getting over her fear of computers, she was more willing to sit and learn the basic commands to get into linux. She now can use gimp, E, and loves most of the gnome game set.
Thanks all
peace
emk
Quadra might be what you want. It's a Tetris-like game with great networking capabilities. Works on Linux and Win32.
Women seem to like top-down games, such as War Craft (some network options), Pharoah (only single player though), etc. Generally the more colorful and the fewer explosions and bloodsplatters the better. But they also seem to love side scrollers. These aren't as popular on PCs these days, but Jazz Jackrabbit 2 allows network play. It came out a while ago and played beautifully on my sister's Pentium 60.
like Monopoly, Clue, etc. are cheap (around $5-$10 per copy).
Sorry if that isn't hard core enough. But after a few games, just say "honey, this is boring. let's go to bed"
(Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, knowwhatImean)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
If you can still find them. We played as a team and enjoyed figuring things out together.
This topic must have been submitted with me in mind. My boyfriend has been trying to get me to play games with him for ages. However, as a CS major, it hasn't been fear that's kept me away so much as boredom.
:)
It wasn't always that way. As a kid, I loved playing my Atari games (Frogger, Empire Stikes Back, Pac-Man etc) and in college I played alot of Lemmings, Tetris and assorted card games. But lately it seems like all the games my boyfriend plays require quiet solitude (Me: Hey- Him: Shhhh.. I'm trying to play here), 3 hands (Me: How do I get it to go forward again?) or an extensive knowledge of firearms (Me: What does strafe mean?). And you never seem to *do* anything except blow people/stuff/creatures up.
Now a game that allowed for social interaction, maybe even discussion *while* playing could be interesting. Or a game based on something I was already into (like a TV series or novels). Or one with a story or defined tasks. Any of those would be fun to play *with* him.
OTOH, my mother is absolutely addicted to Freecell. She plays it for hours on end every night. Through TV, movies and even phone calls.
So, I guess my advice to you would be to a) find out if your wife would actually be interested in playing games before you bore her away from the computer permanently, b) find out what games she might want to play by herself so she could improve her skills on her own and c) find out what games you could play with her to help her get over her fear of the computer and make it an enjoyable experience.
That's my 2 cents. And maybe I'll try some of the games mentioned already and make my boyfriend happy
You can also check out the site and see if there are any completed games that might appeal to you. Many of them are quite original, written by hobbyists for the love of the craft. If you see something interesting, just download the client and try out a few games. Best part - it comes free with the development environment in case you get the urge to create later on. Unfortunately the site is a bit swamped with pre-teen DBZ fans and their endless copycat "games," but if you ignore those, you'll fine a number of fun high-quality games to choose from.
Gosh, that sounded like quite the advertisement! No, I'm just a very happy user.
Say hello to zMac.
For some bizarre reason, women tend to like Tetris, so, how about playing tetrinet ?
yush
It doesn't appear to be in the FAQ, either. I guess you're just supposed to know. Oh well.
http://www.electrotank.com/games/playGames.cfm?gam eID=31
Excellent mini-golf game!