Wife friendly games?

Capeman

Definitely Tetris (tengen 2 player version) and Dr. Mario with the no-punishment hack.

SgtJimmyRustles

Mean Bean Machine or Kirby's Avalanche. (Puyo Puyo 2 clones for genesis/snes respectively.)

AndersHP

Keep 'em coming!

@thelostsoul NES, MAME, SNES, MegaDrive/Genesis and NeoGeo are the systems I run on my bartop arcade. But am willing to try other.

pjft

These are great picks. There was a similar thread in the past that might be worth checking as well.

We play 2p Tetris - Gameboy or SNES Tetris Battle Gaiden. Puzzle Bobble, Puyo Puyo are great.

I tried Bishi Bashi Special with my wife but it didn't click. Too random for her. Still, a great casual collection of games on the psx. My sister - not a gamer - likes it a lot. The classic Mario Bros as well.

On AdvMame there are two games I'd recommend. Bonanza Bros is a nice one (also a Genesis version though I'm not sure if it supports 2 players), but also the Namco Arcade Collection volume 2 which has a 2-player version of Pacman that I found out about recently.

thelostsoul

@andershp Ok, then let me add some wife friendly multi player SNES games, my favorite console. :-) I didn't play all of those games, just a disclaimer. My favorite recommendation for any Match Block games on any system is Tetris Attack.

SNES (Match Block genre)

Kirby's Ghost Trap
Pac-Attack
Tetris & Mario
Tetris Attack (highly recommended)
Tetris Battle Gaiden
Wario's Woods
Yoshi's Cookie

SNES (other wife friendly games)

Donkey Kong Country 1 - 3
Goof Troop
Kirby's Dreamcourse
Kirby's Dream Land 3
Kirby Super Star (several mini games)
Pocky & Rocky 2
Secret of Mana
Super Bomberman 2 (just yes)
Super Mario All-Stars
Super Mario Kart
Super Mario World
Super Tennis
Legend of the Mystical Ninja
The Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse
Worms
Zombies ate my Neighbors

SNES (maybe not wife friendly)

Battletoads & Double Dragon
Contra 3
International Superstar Soccer Deluxe
Rock N' Roll Racing
Street Fighter 2 Turbo
Super Smash T.V.
Firepower 2000
Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
The Lost Vikings
Uniracers (i love this game, so unique)
Wild Guns

akafox

@clyde said in Wife friendly games?:

I recently heard in an arcade history documentation that Centipede was very popular amongst women in its time. The reasons are unknown, but could have to do with its pastel colours.

Centipede was made by a woman..thus why maybe so popular with them.
She made it because she didn't like space invaders..."it was boring and had no purpose."

Why kill aliens that don't exist..when bugs DO exists and women love to kill them ;)

And as for Kirby's Avalanche I had a gf that LOVED that game used to beat me EVERY time until I started playing on my SNES on-line. I improved so much we made it a uhh strip version...but that is for a TOTALLY different thread....
And she LOVED Super Bomberman..and hated that she lost to me lol

My gf now she LOVES Zelda and Frogger and Donkey Kong, Super Mario Kart, Crash Team Racing..not so much a puzzle game fan..but then again she hates that I "play with my pi all the time" (I spend more time tweaking it than playing for her mostly! 0.o ) but plays it whenever she can...

Really depends on the woman shrugs

Alturis

There used to be a Mahjong game where you could play competitively and my wife absolutely loved it. We would drink beer and compete over it. Basically, you get a score based on how many matches you could find and a timer would limit how long you could take for your turn. Each match you found would add more time. There are a bunch of arcade mahjong games I have noticed in the MAME lists but I haven't yet tried any of them.

Alturis

@akafox said in Wife friendly games?:

(I spend more time tweaking it than playing for her mostly!

Thats what she said.... ;)

wetriner

My wife enjoys playing ToeJam & Earl on genesis quite a bit.

Clyde

@akafox said in Wife friendly games?:

Centipede was made by a woman..thus why maybe so popular with them.
She made it because she didn't like space invaders..."it was boring and had no purpose."

Thanks for that, it made me research a little myself. Actually, Centipede was made by a man and a woman. According to Wikipedia, Ed Logg (co-author of Asteroids) was the supervisor/designer and the Dona Bailey was the programmer. She liked the pastel colours, so that fits to what I've heard before, and "[I]t didn't seem bad to shoot a bug", that fits to your comment about them. :)

I really like learning about the history of (not only arcade) games. It makes you understand why the games you play are the way they are, and you get to know the people behind them.

edit:

I spend more time tweaking it than playing

Don't we all. ;)

Clyde

@clyde said in Wife friendly games?:

Actually, Centipede was made by a man and a woman.

And maybe two other people whose names didn't make it into the history books: "She was the software engineer on the four-person team."

Just mentioned for completeness, I don't want to hijack this thread. O:)

thelostsoul

Found some new Arcade games for this thread, while searching for new games to add to my RetroPie:

mame2003

bangball Bang Bang Ball (v1.05)
blocken Blocken (Japan)
cachat Cachat (Japan)

I think you can ignore the Japanese language on those titles here, because the games don't need the language here. They are some sort of Match Block or puzzlish games, but in a unique way I never saw before and they have 2 player options. I didn't play them for long, just checked for 2 minutes if they are working.
(tested on non overclocked Raspberry Pi 3)

pjft

Yesterday I was trying to think of a game I played several years ago - maybe 10-15+ years ago - that I think would fit the bill, but I can't seem to find the name or the system for it, though I find plenty of clones.

I'm fairly sure I played it on the PC at least, and it was a competitive multiplayer snake-like game, also kind of like Tron light cycles or something.

I'm not sure if there's anything like that on the arcade or on a console as well, but that's one my wife would likely enjoy. Thought I'd mention in case it does ring a bell to anyone else.

thelostsoul

@pjft yesterday, I was looking out for some new games and saw such a game. Later this day, I could find it back maybe. It was on Mame, eventually starting with c or d letter. In facty I was looking alphabetically through the compatibility list of mame2003 and was just picking up randomly.

SgtJimmyRustles

I can't remember, but was Mean Bean Machine brought up yet? Did I bring it up yet?

drake999

@andershp My fiancee and I really enjoy the original Road Rash for PSX. We've been known to stay up most of the night taking turns playing it, seeing who can get the farthest before wiping out and doing shots, lol. It's a good time.

quicksilver

@drake999 "original" road roash on PSX? Blasphemy! ;)

If you enjoy road rash, you should check out Road Rash 64. It actually plays very nicely on the pi (menus are choppy). The game is a steaming pile of crap, and the crash physics are poorly done. But it does make for some hilarious situations!

drake999

@quicksilver I respect your opinion, but I have seen Road Rash 64 and I like the PSX version better. To me Road Rash 64 just looks so ugly. Textures are worse than the PSX version, the only advantage being that they are filtered on N64. Unfiltered, blocky, and twitchy textures are part of the charm of the PSX though. Plus I just find the PSX Road Rash just funner to play. Hey if you like the N64 version, I'm not going to disrespect you for it, but it's not for me.

quicksilver

@drake999 Oh Im sure the PSX version is better. I was mainly being facetious. =)

The N64 version is awful, but sometimes its just fun to laugh at something awful. Know what I mean?

Sano

@quicksilver said in Wife friendly games?:

@drake999 "original" road roash on PSX? Blasphemy! ;)

If you enjoy road rash, you should check out Road Rash 64.

Real road rash is on sega megadrive (aka genesis). Period. ;)