Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Good Ideas For Creative Gaming With Girlfriend?
First time accepted submitter TimBur1e6 writes "Suppose you had just moved 1000 miles away from your significant other, but you wanted to continue to create shared life experiences. You could text, or talk by voice, or even video chat. And those would all be good things to do. However, there's a difference between telling someone about your day, and actually spending time together. What are some fun and constructive ways of spending time together on the net? In particular, what are good things to do with a significant other who is less into combat, and more into collaboration, exploration, creativity, and storytelling?"
Minecraft? Portal 2 Team Mode? Draw Something?
Minecraft, but in 2D. This actually makes it better, in my opinion. It's easier to build things. Also, it looks nicer.
Anyone can do it. Snuggles not included
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
Surprised this game hasn't been suggested yet.
"... collaboration, exploration, creativity, and storytelling?"
Suggest a 3-way?
Some may scoff at this, but this is exactly the sort of thing SL for.
Look around in there, you'll probably find something to your liking.
Since most of the suggestions above me weren't actually serious, I'll add play Neverwinter. It's free to play and the people are easy going and not psycho competitive and mean like LoL or Starcraft 2. The game itself is pretty fun and some content is pretty tongue in cheek. It's really easy to hop on and just do whatever together like a raid of dungeon or pvp and there's plenty of comical pvp groups like all 5 wizards who lose horribly or something. So yeah, definitely fun, free, modern, and it's really easy to give each other free stuff in game as a present :-)
While not strickly a game many people find it a great way to interact with others far away., I met my partner there. She lived across the country for the first year of our relationship. Sounds strange but many of the things that can be done in real life can be done in Second Life. There are live DJ's and live musicians if you like to go dancing. There are video stores where you can purchase a video for viewing and watch it stream together from the comfort of your virtual home. There are some theaters. There is a ton to do in SL. From G rated on up. Its what you make it and its a great way to date while far away from your loved one.
http://www.second-life.com/
--- Always remember. 99.36% of all statistics are inaccurate.
Leave skype on all evening... Watch movies "together" and talk to each other while watching. Make the same dinners "together." Storytelling? Open up a google doc and write your own story collaboratively. If you both like games, then play whatever you like together using teamspeak. My girl and I have played Ultima Online, Everyquest, starwars and Diablo when we were working across the country. What's important is that you communicate and spend "time" together. But something important that no one will mention is this: Trust each other and give each other time alone. Good luck.
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"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
Collaboration: Create an online dating profile. Have your old girlfriend write a recommendation on why you're worth dating.
Exploration: Ask her to rate potential new girlfriends.
Creativity: Date new girlfriend.
Storytelling: Tell the old one about the new one.
Combat: You did say she's not into combat, right? But, just in case, hide your batleth.
This depends to some degree on your age and how long you have been together, but unless you've been married or similarly commited for a significant length of time, or you expect them to join you in a definite period of time, it's not worth trying to hold together. There are other fish in the sea.
I get the impression, given the time of year, that you may have just gone to college, in which case, generally speaking, it's already over. The only real question is how long it takes you two to realize it.
Dating advice from slashdot. Really?
Long Distance Relationships work. I was in one for over a year, and am now happily married. They are hard, but the poster isn't asking for our advice on the relationship.
All I can say is that my wife and I played lots of online games together, from Battleship to Gin. We kept it varied, and played mostly casual games, though we did rock the Diablo II for a while.
The best person to talk to about this, really, is your girlfriend.
Best of luck.
This.
It really makes me sad how many geeks, who spend much of their adolescence and young adult lives complaining (quite justifiably) about our toxic jock-centered culture, still manage to absorb a lot of the lessons of that culture and carry them into adulthood. I understand how it happens--it's much the same reason so many children of abusive parents grow up to be abusers themselves--but that doesn't make it okay. A big part of becoming an adult is learning to move past that, to be a better person than you were conditioned to be.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Honestly, unless you're over 50, sustaining a relationship with someone over a prolonged and indefinite period of time from a great distance is probably a terrible idea all around. Obviously, this might not always be true if you're just moving away for part of a year for work or one of you has to move before the other . . . but otherwise, it probably makes more sense to call it and find someone local that you can actually have a relationship with.
Pick a book you'll both enjoy, and take turns reading aloud to each other.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Start by developing an idea, tone, and theme for a story that you can collaborate on and write. There's a lot of fun details to flesh out to make the world feel alive (especially if the story isn't just set in modern times) like establishing kingdoms or galactic alliances and whatnot. If you one you likes to draw or doodle, you can get some fun map-making in. You can setup short term goals like "this week, we should each try and write up a character profile for someone in the world" and then share the ideas you've come up with when you're together online again.
I know it's not a straight-up game in the way you were asking, but it could easily become one that's shared between just the two of you. Most rewarding is the actual progress you make on something that will last longer than the next WoW patch cycle. And who knows, maybe you guys end up releasing the next big book series as a result, or pioneer a new pen-and-paper RPG setting. As long as you did it together, you've created unique memories with each other, despite the distance.
The only game you're going to enjoy is called "unpleasant few months splitting up with my girlfriend despite good internet access because moving 1000 miles away from her means the relationship is over".
You will learn a great deal in the process, mostly concerning the fact that the most important part of a relationship is lots of time spent together sharing real life experiences and, yes, good 'ol fashoined sex.
Sorry dude, but time will teach you that this just wasn't going to end well, no matter how much in denial you were when you made the decision to make this move : I've made the same mistake myself in the past when bandwidth and communiction possibilities were less advanced than they are now but the bottom line is you put a career opportunity first and this is the price you will almost certainly have to pay.
Baloney. Long distance relationships are, for certain, difficult as hell. But they can work, and things as asked by TimBur1e6 are legit ways to feel together. My fiance and I watched movies together (both of us having downloaded the same file, starting it at the same time) while on Skype, and it really did engender a feeling of closeness.
You are assuming a lot about the OP's relationship, and none of it is warranted or remotely appropriate. The only thing that's been expressed so far is that OP wants to find ways to interact with his girlfriend despite their distance. He didn't say why he was moving, for how long, when he's going to see her again, how long they've been dating, what they've liked to do together in the past, etc. etc. etc. So how about instead of being a presumptuous asshole and deriding OP for no reason, you make yourself useful and recommend some games or mod up good replies.
Bingo.
B-6
You sank my Battleship!
Try Second Life...it is a multi-user virtual environment with all the trappings of social media. However, it is an environment created by the users. You can do *anything* there, and I do mean anything, up to and including virtual sex if that is your bent. Extremely rich, immersive and even addictive (of course), virtual marriages have occurred there that led to real life marriages...and divorces.
what?!!! some girls like to play and FPS, RPG, Scrabble or something else. maybe even try http://isketch.net/ if you don't know what your girlfriend likes... YOU FAIL BY NOT ASKING HER!
We are now happily married and looking forward to L4D3 :)
That's a terrible name to burden a child with. At least pick something pronounceable.
You have no idea what you are talking about because you don't know his situation. There are few things in life worse than giving up a girl you are deeply in love with, and living with the result 12+ years later. Haunting dreams to remind you.
If they really are spectacular together, I wouldn't suggest them being apart for any reason. The pain is just too much.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
I can tell quite a few of you pussies have never been in the military.
...or had an s/o travel on business a lot. While I don't do it long-term, I do know folks who work on remote assignment for months at a shot, or spend at least half the year cumulatively away from family, girlfriends, etc.
On occasion, I usually go off for a week or so to some remote big city on business, but the missus and I keep in daily touch by phone, online via chat, and usually even by (*gasp*) facebook just to share some weird shit we stumbled across that day (me while walking about town, her by pointing me to weird shit back home).
The big trick is communication. Talk about everything and anything, at least once a day. Watch a show together while chatting or on the phone. Do something romantic. Oh, for instance? I'd draw a heart on the beach with our initials, take a photo, and email it to her. In San Francisco there's a zillion heart sculptures - snap a photo of a different one each day and send it along with a little poem. Take a photo of yourself watching a sunset, email that, and then call her telling her about stuff on your mind while she opens that photo. The point is to let her know you still think of her, and how much you love her. She'll appreciate that a whole lot more than tchotskes or souvenirs.
Most important of all - If you're gone a long time, and if you can swing it, find a way to get back there on a periodic basis to be with her, or find a way to get her out to you.
Now this go 'round, I saved a few extra pennies and brought her along (it's our anniversary, and she'd never seen this city before) - but that gets pricey after awhile... So we adapt, and enjoy the times when we are together. No end-game involved. Maybe TFA dude is doing something similar. Maybe he expects to be reunited shortly. No business of mine, but I'm happy to help when I can.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I can tell quite a few of you pussies have never been in the military.
If you end up in the military you have nobody to blame but yourself.