🎯 Why these games made the list
The test was simple and strict: a shared goal, a shared outcome, and two people who both have to show up. Our originals each split something between the players. Tether ties them together with a rope that has a maximum length. Beam gives one player the light and the other the ability to walk in it, so neither can see and act at the same time. Color Gates hands you two colours between the two of you, meaning the colour you need is the one you have to take off your partner. Yoke gives each player one axis of the same body, and Quilt puts you both on one board with one shared score. From the catalogue, 2 Player Games Kids Kitchen is a restaurant game whose publisher says you can work together with your friends. Rescue Rangers, Red and Green Rainbow and Mortal Brothers Survival are puzzle platformers where both characters have to make it out, and in Party Stickman 4 Player a single death restarts the chapter for everyone. Plenty of games look co-op and are not — racing the same obstacle course while being scored separately is still a race.