#couch co op

[faerie-of-faerun]

Shout-out to Larian Studios for giving Baldur's Gate 3 ✨️couch co-op✨️ since too few games have that option nowadays!

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #larian studios #video games #couch co op #split screen #I will eventually figure out what to do with the poll and the specs post sorry #I seriously miss playing games in couch co-op with my friends ;;

[you-get-me-closer-to-god]

Can I just say? I’m actually speechless at the quality of bg3 and I haven’t even played it yet. It makes me want to cry that they really put everything we’ve ever wanted in a game. Cross play, beautiful mo cap and voice acting, hot people to romance, all that is wonderful and they really took their time with it.

But what really makes me want to cry and kiss every Larian Studios dev on the mouth is the split screen couch co-op. I can’t tell you how many games I used to play with my siblings with split screen until it suddenly went out of style for video games (ahem lazy game studios ahem), so we flat out gave up.

And for such a beautiful and large game to have that?? I can play with my sister for hours and hours and hours. It actually makes me emotional. Fuck Starfield or any other half-assed unfinished “new” video game out there. I would happily and gladly pay 70 bucks for Baldur’s Gate 3. I wouldn’t even sweat if it was 100$.

#bg3 #baldur’s gate 3 #larian studios #video games #split screen #couch co op #ps5 #xbox #cross play

[thattowntertainment]

It’s here! It’s here!

Listen now! Tell your loved ones!

https://talesofthattown.libsyn.com/seven-year-thank-you

#thattown entertainment #tales of thattown #comedy #podcast #supernatural #audio drama #horror #let’s play #couch co-op #fallout #fallout new vegas #podcast recommendations #podernfamily #new vegas #fnv oc #fnv rp #fnv #youtube #fnv lp #couch co op

[nuclearpastaweekly]

pass the controller bro

#would you #gaming #co op #co op games #couch co op #controller

[dear-future-ai]

Controversial debate time

Did the additions of trophies, advancements, and achievements ruin or aid in replayability of video games?

Personally once, I 100% a game, I feel no need to continue playing even if there is more to do or online multiplayer options. Also if I’m not earning, subjectively, enough achievements as I play: it’s easy for me to abandon a game. And, additionally, if a game doesn’t have achievements it’s usually hard for me to get attached— these are generally free gimmick indie games, though.

My experience with online games is varied and hard to quantify; and couch co-op is, in my experiences, highly replayable, but dwindling in comparison to online gameplay, and dependent on having people to play with.

So I’d say it harmed my overall experience replaying any games, but it would be hard for me to switch back into playing a single game for simple enjoyment.

—I think Minecraft and Tetris are the only true outliers. (And Minecraft I still go through long dry spells).

#Tetris effect #dear future ai #ramblings #debate #video games #achievement hunting #achievements #trophies #online multiplayer games #gaming #gamer enby #gamer girl #gamer boy #couch co op

[springusdingus]

We are making Volo do our bestie portraits

Character info?

my partner and I are doing a split screen run, so meet Batty the Witch (Mielikki's special little cleric who has a crush on the wizard) and their lifelong best (read: only) friend and tadpole-sharer: Jhune, the 7 foot tall Drow Eagleheart Barbarian who has never been underground before. She and Karlach are somehow already in love.

#baldur's gate 3 #wyll ravengard #volo #oc: Beatrice “Batty” Wildwood #oc by bigyetimane: Jhune Dahlmas #couch co op

[kalscattergood]

Himbo likes when we play couch co-ops so I suggested Ibb & Obb. He bought the game on Steam and then started reading the reviews out loud, and is now considering refunding it.

#my himbo boyfriend #himbo #himbo quotes #stoner thoughts #steam games #ibb and obb #couch co op

[willow-j]

I was reminded tonight of how much I miss couch co-op games. Playing Overcooked 2 with a friend online, we hung out over Discord and shouted at each other while throwing shit around the kitchen. I cracked up so much on one level I couldn't finish it; I had to put the controller down and laugh it out, while he pelted me with raw chicken from afar.

#video games #couch co op #overcooked #laughing with friends #i can't stop laughing

[hanksthompson]

“Okay, boys, I'm gonna have to stop you right there. As much as I'm enjoying your charming machismo, the moment we step onto the shooting range, we're playing by my rules, okay? And what I say goes. Got it?”

Brenda Song as Kaitlyn Ka in The Quarry

#the quarry #kaitlyn ka #kaitlyn the quarry #brenda song #the quarry gifs #i'm in love with her! #when i tell you i died the minute i found out brenda song was in this game i knew i had to play her in the couch co-op game #only a little awkward because i also picked dylan but it's fine #spare hand in marriage ma'am <3 #flora's gifs

[askagamedev]

What if any technical reasons are there that more PS5 and Series X games do not support offline co-op and multiplayer modes? It seems that while yes, current gen games are more demanding, current gen hardware is exponentially more capable than past generations. Why not just add a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th viewport into the world and let people game together? Any relevant answer would be appreciated. If none, I'll just assume my suspicions are correct and you are under some NDA about this. The breaking of which would result in being blacklisted and hunted down by John Wick himself. Thank you.

Let's assume that we have no technical limitations - infinite memory, infinite CPU and GPU cycles. We can run as many viewports as we could possibly want. What else could be holding us back? Here are a few game design considerations that make split screen a non-trivial task, even in a scenario where technical limitations don't exist.

Aspect Ratio

When we are designing a game, screen visibility and aspect ratio are important. Look at this screenshot from God of War Ragnarok:

The framing of the cinematic is absolutely focused on showing the characters and their difference in size on screen, with the point of focus being Mjolnir in the very center. You can see at a glance how much bigger Thor is than Kratos. That's completely intentional. Now let's see it in split screen. First, let's split the screen vertically:

I tried to retain the "gist" of the original shot. We're still centered on Kratos vs Thor with Mjolnir in the center of the frame. I tried to keep as of both characters in frame as I could. Clearly, this shot doesn't have anywhere near the visual impact of the original. You just can't see much of either character. We retain the struggle in the center of the screen for Mjolnir, but we lose the visual representation of the characters' sizes. Now let's try splitting the screen horizontally instead:

Once again, I tried to fit as much into the frame as I could. Now we can't see enough of either body, it's so squashed down. We can't see the relative size of Mjolnir either. We can't even see how tall Thor is because his head is getting cut out of the frame.

It's pretty obvious that this shot is meant to be viewed at a specific aspect ratio. Halving either dimension simply won't work, significant rework must be done in order to do this. But what if we retain the original aspect ratio by dividing into fourths?

It's better - we can at least see all of relative sizes of each other. But the characters themselves are much smaller, especially because we don't sit close enough to the television in order to get the same effect. But let's move on. There are other issues.

User Interface and Screen Size

Things get worse when we have to put UI on the screen too, because we can't shrink our UI or text to 1/4 of its original size in order to maintain the screen aspect ratio. Here's another screenshot from God of War Ragnarok, this time with combat UI:

Let's try splitting this screen vertically:

I've done a quick and dirty copy/paste job for the UI elements and maintained their relative size on screen. We're already losing out on a lot of peripheral vision in combat. Since we can't scale the UI, observe how it is taking up significantly more screen space too. We have to show two of every UI element, not one... and they can't really be scaled down or they'll be too small to see. Now let's see it in horizontal split screen:

Now we have the peripheral vision... kind of... but the UI is still eating a lot of that screen space and we're losing significant amounts of vertical screen space. This might be ok in a game where enemies show up to the left and right, but not if there are often enemies coming from above or below. The UI screen space problem gets significantly worse when we run it in four viewports while maintaining UI screen size:

Everything feels so much more squished and tiny, even when running at the same aspect ratio as the original. It's a fundamentally different experience, because you're seeing so much less of the world in the various split screen modes. God forbid we try to have any kind of subtitle display in four-way split screen.

These are two specific constraints with splitting the screen. There are more problems I haven't gotten into, like directional audio no longer working because we've got multiple simultaneous player locations or handling menu navigation gracefully in split screen. This is not to say that it is impossible to make split screen work - it is absolutely not impossible. What I am saying is that it is not trivial to make it work - we can't just turn on two/three/four viewports and call it a day, not without inadvertently causing a significantly worse player experience in many regards. These kind of challenges must be identified, designed for, and fit into the development budget.

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#split screen #couch co-op #design challenges #UI design #visual design #user experience

[itstimeforstarwars]

Y'all know any couch co-op games for xbox one or nintender switch? I need new games to play with my sibling.

#chit chat #i have borderlands series and gears of war and that's pretty much it #i was hoping little nightmares 3 would be couch co-op but it looks like only online co-op #because force forbid gamers have friends or siblings irl right #im hoping for suggestions that aren't $60+ but if mario is the only option on switch i also appreciate mario recommendations #i miss ps2 and wii era almost everything was 2 player back then

[petziez]

I swear to god if I fall for astarion when bg3 comes out for xbox I'm gonna be so embarrassed

#blah blah bryn #its my gfs xbox we have 2 wait so we can couch co-op

[thattowntertainment]

Today’s episode of the THATTOWN Horrorama might be Ashlee’s favorite of this year:

https://youtu.be/kFqDuNYedsc

#thattown entertainment #tales of thattown #comedy #podcast #supernatural #audio drama #horror #let’s play #couch co-op #fallout #fallout new vegas #podcast recommendations #podernfamily #new vegas #fnv oc #fnv rp #fnv #youtube #fnv lp #couch co op #daymare 1998

[johnnystorm]

for a man named honesty, you're remarkably good at lying.

#oc: honesty #bg3edit #baldur's gate #hes my guy for my couch co op playthru w my mom i think hes neat #frest.png #.ittv

[neutral-goddess]

rest in peace to my fiancé. sitting through like 2 hours of character creation with me

#bg3 #gotta love couch co-op

[echthr0s]

I am disappointed about how this BG3 experiment turned out but I cannot be too disappointed because I also learned some things in the process, namely about what makes games "work" for me and the difference between appreciating something's artistic value and enjoying the experience of it. cut for length

I don't enjoy Larian games. which feels bad to say, because I think Larian games are beautiful and intricate and full of amazing worldbuilding. why would I not enjoy that? it's very simple -- they are mechanically dense in a way that I find very unrewarding. and that feels bad to say, because the way people tend to interpret "this doesn't work for me" is as "this is bad and shouldn't exist", and sometimes I internalise that. but I know damn well that's not what I'm saying. what I am saying is that what makes games enjoyable for me is different than what it is for the people who enjoy Larian games, which is a perfectly neutral concept

I had to compare how I feel when playing the games I love to how I felt when I was playing BG3. Can Calah pointed out that he has never heard so many frustrated noises per minute from me while playing a game that didn't end up in me immediately dropping the game, and that's a good point. at one point I was literally in tears. this is not because the game is difficult to me. it is, in a way, but it's not like Bloodborne where I literally couldn't get past the first mob of enemies, lol. that didn't make me feel bad, I knew I wasn't gonna get through that game, I just wanted to try it anyway and laugh at how bad I was at it. what BG3 is to me is taxing.

here's an example: I'm familiar with isometric RPGs and especially their movement set. but BG3 is like... some hybrid of isometric and straight 3D, and I constantly want to move the camera down behind my character and use WASD for movement, expecting the camera to circle around the environment in a 3D fashion when I move my mouse. and this is a minor peeve -- not even a peeve, more like a "the way this game looks to me and the way this game is meant to be played are at odds, apparently" -- but it sets a baseline level of minor irritation. like a lil IRL debuff. so then when I hit something else that is irritating (like gnarly turn-based combat scenarios or having to reload a bunch of times trying to get past one NPC without activating a gnarly turn-based combat scenario), I'm already irritated, so I have less mental resources to deal with this new thing. I did not immediately recognise this was happening, but it's definitely the main roadblock for me

last night I went to do some research to see if I could figure out ways to make my Act I experience a little less taxing. I love learning tips and tricks about games I play, or finding out how the game works behind the scenes, stuff like that. when I look up stuff about ESO or FFXIV or Mass Effect or whatever, I feel curious and excited to try out whatever new thing I learn. (this is why I don't read the ESO subreddit at night, because then I learn something and I immediately want to boot up the game and try it out and I can't bc I'm supposed to be going to sleep and I get mad LOL) but I didn't feel that way at all last night. I just felt... tired. the curiosity and excitement did not magically appear. because ultimately this is just not a game I can play. not right now, at least. and yes, this upsets me, because I wanted to play it. but enjoyment cannot be forced and it's not fair to myself to go "look at all these other people having a great time, why can't you be more like them?" (talk about a line straight out of the Bad Parenting Playbook lmaooo)

yes, I would have loved to find out what it's like to be half-illithid, I would have loved to fall in love with Wyll, I would have loved to learn more about Faerûn and the various cultures and wow, would I have loved to see the Underdark, finally! I won't be meeting that drider guy I kept seeing gifs of and that makes me sad! but "the journey is the important thing" is never more true than when it comes to video games -- if I do not enjoy the minute-to-minute gameplay, if the journey itself is not inspiring joy in me, then it won't matter if I somehow push myself long enough to get to those moments. because I will be so stressed and tired and annoyed by the time I get there that I won't even enjoy the victory. so then is it really worth it?

the insight I've gained about myself as a gamer from failing to become a BG3 player is, however, quite worth it, I think

#frankly this is a game i should be watching someone else play. in person i mean-- not a youtube video #or even doing couch co-op with. i would totally player-2 this game #like basically... i most enjoy games that are light on mechanics but heavy on story/worldbuilding. #this is why bioware games and obsidian games work so well for me #larian is heavy on both and unfortunately that doesn't work as well for me #i also felt singularly alone in this experience which didn't help. like where are the other people who also struggle with this??? #definitely the ''everyone else is having fun and looking at me like i'm fucking stupid bc i can't'' vibe #which i finally clocked as a ''undiagnosed nd kid who can't understand or explain why things aren't as easy for them'' trigger #ah well. live and learn as they say. #singularity.txt #baldur's gate