Puzzlegames are perhaps one of the best genres for co-op, as you can bond with someone easily over both trying to work out how you’ll make progress.
There’s a massive variety of multiplayer puzzle games out there, but quite a few are competitive, and others are not that great, all things considered.
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There was no puzzle picking the games for this list!
Given that I grew up with several multiplayer puzzle games that I played with my siblings, I’ve always had a fondness for great puzzle games that let you bring friends along.
That’s why I’m making this list, to showcase ten awesome co-op puzzlers that’ll tickle the brains of you and whoever you’re playing with, and make for a great time.
10KarmaZoo
Friendship Royale
KarmaZoo is an incredibly unique Puzzle Platformer. It can be played either on the same screen or with nine random people online helping you out, which works way better than you may think.
Everyone plays as an array of creatures with varying abilities, but the only way to unlock them is by helping other people out, and teamwork is incentivized so much that you get killed for trying to do things on your own.
It’s probably not great if you only have one or two friends to play with, but I think that the game is better at incentivizing teamwork and being helpful, and it makes every online lobby a joy to be in.
It’s got silly vibes, a unique style with simplistic characters on detailed backgrounds, and it’s worth a shot if you’re looking for a game to play with strangers, or if you feel like you might jive with local co-op.
9It Takes Two
Slightly Puzzling
It Takes Two
It Takes Twois an absolutely lovely game that’s entirely built around two-player co-op, and while I think it’s an awesome experience, it’s just okay as a puzzle game.
None of the puzzles are super challenging, but some of them might tease your brain for a bit, namely in the Clock area, but it’smore about the vibes than anything else.
It’s preoccupied with making cool set pieces, fun gimmicks, decent platforming, and being a divorce simulator; then it throws on some puzzles that use the two characters in cool ways.
It is a puzzle game by technicality, and since it’s such a fun game overall, I think it’s worth a shot if you’re looking for something enjoyable that won’t cause too much frustration.
8Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
Don’t Stress If You Want To Live!
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
An incredibly stressful friendship tester,Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, puts one player in control of defusing a bomb and another on manual reading duty.
It’s intense because you’re probably not memorizing a 23-page manual with walls of conditional statements, tables of symbols, and a Simon Says tutorial.
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This induces an incredibly frantic spirit in the defuser and causes chaos for the manual reader. Since the puzzle is randomized each time, you get as much play time as you can tolerate.
It does get pretty repetitive after a while, as there’s not much else to this game, but it’s a great concept and fun to experience with people who might still be your friends after you’re done.
7Toodee and Topdee
Double the Dimensions
One of the most unique puzzle games out there, Toodee and Topdee, is an excellent merging of puzzle platforming and top-down puzzlers, with each player’s perspective being different.
This game is also really deceptively difficult. One player does precision platforming while the other tries to move boxes and coordinate everything, making for a real test of skill and friendship.
I’d recommend this if you and a buddy are both quite good at video games, as if you try to play this with someone who’s not very experienced, it’s going to be frustrating as all hell.
When you’re both locked in, though, you’ll easily be navigating around player-placed platforms perfectly put on your path, with the other player hopefully not messing things up.
6Snipperclips
Trimmed to Perfection
Snipperclips: Cut It Out Together
Genuinely one of my favorite Switch exclusive titles, Snipperclips is an incredibly cute and simple game where you and a friend snip shapes out of each other to solve puzzles.
This evolves from forming easy shapes, into cutting each other into cups, to throwing balls into hoops and using very simple snipping, twisting, and jumping for a bunch of unique ideas.
This game is just a delight to play, every puzzle being a head-scratcher that feels fun to figure out, with a really simple and clean aesthetic.
It’s all the epitome of Nintendo-like game design, with a great concept that gets used to its full extent and remains fun to play around with through the whole short experience.
5Escape Simulator
Quite Roomy
Escape Simulator
If you’ve ever been in or seen an escape room in real life, then you’ve already got a good idea of what Escape Simulator is all about, which is to say, you escape from a lot of rooms.
Each room is as intricately laid out as you’d hope for, with puzzles and hints scattered around, leading into other puzzles smoothly, and making for a cohesive experience.
Just like with real escape rooms, the benefit of playing with others is having multiple heads working together on the same project, making communication key.
I’d say this is a rather excellent interpretation of the escape room experience with a ton of community maps, plus it has Portal and Among Us DLC, and that’s just awesome.
4Death Squared
Simple and Silly
Death Squared
For a game that’s got quite funny writing on top of being an excellent, zero-fluff puzzle game meant for multiple players,Death Squaredis awesome.
It has you and your friends controlling cubes that can push stuff and navigate the environment in pretty limited ways, making you think about how you can use the layout to your advantage.
What I love about it, especially in the context of co-op-focused puzzlers, is that all the levels are unique for your player count, the 2-player levels being significantly less complex than 4-player.
Thatsimple commitment to unique levelspropels it from a basic puzzle game to one of the best simplistic puzzle games for playing with friends, even if it’s not super in-depth.
3Unravel 2
Strung Together Nicely
One of the most charming and beautiful co-op puzzle platformers I’ve ever played is published by EA, and I don’t know how to feel about that, butUnravel2 is great.
You and your partner are connected via string, able to use that to your advantage and swing around, climb up walls, pull objects, and work together without getting too far apart.
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This is used excellently as you pilot a toy truck around a backyard, use your string to lift stuff for your buddy, and get around the somewhat light platforming.
This game isn’t super skill-heavy but does require a little bit of precise execution, making itgreat for playing with just about anyone, as long as you’re able to carry them through the hard bits.
2We Were Here
Hear Me Out
We Were Here
You may not have heard of it, but We Were Here has you and your friend both trapped in separate parts of a massive castle, only able to communicate through a walkie-talkie.
You’ll both have access to very limited information, be forced to try and describe what you’re seeing, and hope that you’re understandable enough to progress, which is both a headscratcher and very fun.
This gets especially complex when you need your friend to pick from a series of very abstract symbols, describe them in a vague enough way for misinterpretation, and get stuck for a while.
There are five games in this series that are all pretty great, and very similar, but the first one is free, so I’d say give it a shot, even if you think the idea of your friend barking orders at you isn’t appealing.
A True Test
Finally, one of my favorite games ever,Portal2, has an awesome multiplayer campaign that has a unique story from the main game, with the same amount of snarky, genius writing.
You and a friend get to solve puzzles by shooting portals, throwing around cubes, and redirecting lasers, now with access to four separate portals.
These levels feel even more layered and complex than usual, which is great since you’ll have two people working together to solve them, figuring out the obtuse portal placements, and launching high into the sky.
You might think the complexity would make this game hard to pick up, but I played through this with my brother when I was 8, so I think it’s pretty manageable for anyone to learn.
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