I spent a good chunk of time on Discord with my oldest and bestest friend. We have a small ritual of playing coop games over the holidays, barely acknowledging the passing of time as we bicker and giggle together. We are both over 40.
We played a couple of incredibly tough Portal 2 community maps with a limited success rate. But that’s okay because I find the potential for disaster in co-operative puzzling utterly hilarious, and usually crumble into snotty laughter at least once a session. All it takes is the wrong portal at the wrong time and I’m useless for the next five minutes, which happened when I was supposed to portal fling my sprinting friend over a chasm, but he slammed into the wall at high speed. I was done for the night.
The real revelation this year has been Deep Rock Galactic. It wasn’t on our list of planned games, but on a whim we downloaded it. It’s a game about mining through a series of procedurally generated caverns, grabbing minerals and fighting off waves of insectoid cave dwellers.
We’re both only a couple of levels deep into the progression system, but I already have a garish mining uniform and a skull for a head. The flamethrower that the Driller carries is one of the best guns I’ve ever used, and fills the tunnels with beast basting fire. We’re planning to continue.
And tonight we’ll be playing Raft together because nothing can go wrong in a shark-filled ocean when you have your BFF right by your side.
