Co-op games for beginners

Mario travels the world with a hat that takes over other bodies.

The classic for two in front of one television — and one of the few racers where beginners cannot fall off the track at all.

A two-dimensional Mario in which a flower rewrites the rules of the level mid-jump.

Donkey Kong digs his way through a world of destructible rock, with Pauline sitting on his shoulder, singing.

Four characters on one screen, and at the end of every level exactly one gets the crown.

Mario Kart leaves the single track behind: between races you drive across one connected world map.

A world of cubes that belongs to you both and where nothing gets lost.

One of you sits in front of the bomb, the other holds the manual — and neither may see what the other sees.

A pink ball vacuums up an abandoned world, with somebody alongside carrying a spear.

Batman’s beginnings in LEGO bricks, with Arkham-style combat and an open Gotham — the whole story for two on a split screen.

Blast away dirt until none is left — now for two on a split screen as well.

Nine films, four hundred characters, and a death that lasts one second.

A spaceship with more stations than two people can crew at once.

A board game with minigames where you mostly play against each other — and in four modes expressly with each other.

Escape rooms for the living room: pull out drawers, smash pots, find the way out.

Build a farm together. Losing is not provided for; neither is stopping.

Fourteen professions on an island you build up, plus a trip to a past age you build up as well.

You build the course you then have to run yourselves — and the other one is building too.

Two paper figures snip each other into whatever shape the puzzle happens to need.

A knitted doll jumps through a world of fabric, buttons and zips.

A school for escape artists, and every exam is a room with a clock.

A boat that carries the departed to the afterlife, and a cat helping out.

A farming game on a tropical island that also has you rebuilding a coral reef.

A tiny blocky platformer that gets past not one single level without you two talking.

Carry furniture out of flats as a pair, as fast as possible and with as little regard for the windows as you can manage.

Two people ran away together and now live on an abandoned planet off whatever they find there.

One of you is inside the building, the other at a terminal, and you see completely different things.

A dark house, a ghost, and instruments that tell you only half of it.

Two wobbly rubber figures solve puzzles in dreamlike landscapes — though the falling off takes up the larger share.

Australian rules football in the style of NBA Jam — for two on the same television.