You live as tiny mouse-sized humans existing with regular humans who should never know your presence as you occupy the walls and spaces in their home. Every day you must hunt for food, which involves collecting gear to traverse spaces (paperclip + string = grappling hook and rope, matchstick = torch, plastic bag = parachute) to reach places where food is stored (i.e. the kitchen - defended by the cruel cat, mousetraps - easy to find but deadly to use, others). There's also more than one of you with time, where you can find and recruit others from outside the house, mate to create a family base of increasing members (prompting you to expand more into the walls which will increase your chance of discovery by normal humans), and most importantly - coordinate scavenger hunts with your crew (think: one Borrower leads a climb and trails a rope down, allowing others to follow, where more people == more food for the base). Due to the high death rate, there are no main characters, just Borrowers.
[Extras]
- Riding or rearing mice? (they can lead you to the cheese and help dodge the cat)
- Stealing and riding a drone? (perhaps not such a rustic experience anymore)
- Turning your tiny wall cave into a thriving Borrower city complete with electricity and beer? (might require killing the humans)
We found the writing a little bit cringe at times, but ultimately it's a sweet story, and the gameplay and overall creativity is out of this world. Definitely a GOTY.
My wife loves to play it, she is still learning how to use the right stick to aim but is getting much better. Know any other girlfriend friendly co-ops?
Introduced my partner to both of these games. We completed DOS1 together and played countless hours of Stardew Valley - she would take care of the animals and I would take care of the plants.
For the King is a game I don't the mentioned a lot but it's great. It's much like divinity original sin but more roguelike. My girlfriend doesn't like divinity but absolutely loves For the King.
My wife is in the same boat. Here are some games we play:
- Narrative games. Think anything from Quantic Dreams (Heavy Rain, Detroit), lots of Nancy Drew games, Tell tale Games (Walking Dead). Note that none of these are co-op, but they're fun to pass and play.
- Simple platforming games (we're currently playing Kirby and the forbidden land on Switch, will probably play Mario Odyssey after. I let her play the main character but take over if it ever gets tough)
- Puzzle type games (Portal)
She isn't great at games, but she's getting better, and she enjoys playing them.
Lovers in a dangerous spacetime
You are controlling a spaceship with up to four people, bit with all these weapons, shield and steering you have to swap between these or at least coordinate. Really enjoyed this with 3 other friends but might be even more fun with just 1 or 2 extra players as there should be more running around the spaceship
It Takes Two is a masterpiece; I highly recommend it. But, as the title suggests, it indeed requires two players (only one needs to buy the game, at least on Steam).
Yeah indeed, I'm just playing that now with my girlfriend. She normally doesn't play games, but she even enjoys it. I like how creative the developers are with everyday objects.
wow, my wife and I literally just finished playing this (we are close to the end) and were thinking the same thing. Just a real treat of a game. We have really enjoyed poking around at all the extras and what not.
It's not exactly what you're asking for, but you might want to check out the game Grounded. It's a crafting-survival game that's heavily inspired by "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids"
Not only is it a solid premise, but there is an ultrashort story by Franz Kafka that lends itself perfectly to a cinematic promo video:
TINY MOUSE-SIZED HUMAN:
"Alas! The whole world is growing smaller every day.
[Close on the tiny person, panning out ever-so-slowly to reveal, bit by bit, the cavernous enormity of the room.]
At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into."
[Corner trap now visible, the camera holds steady and dwells for a moment on this sad, bleak fate. Suddenly, there is another voice from behind -- this is not a monologue after all.]
CAT, SLINKING INTO VIEW:
"You only need to change your direction." [CAT pounces, and promptly gobbles him up.]
Oh man, the first time I read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH when I was a kid, I was enthralled. My best friend and I would always play that we were the rats and had to hide from the humans while improvising tools, gathering food, and building a base. This reminds me of that and of how fun/creative a game like that could be.
fuuuuuck this would be an amazing game. There are so many directions you could take it. Imagine having to get into the next door backyard, but there's a dog. You have to sneak into the bathroom, find some sleeping pills, then sneak the pills into the dog's food bowl.
It would be like a cross between The Last of Us, Hitman, and The Secret World of Arrietty.
Just a minor thing, but Arrietty is just a movie based on the books in The Borrowers series. Doesn’t matter, your point stands, just like to shout out the original inspiration for the film.
I would love this. I have played every Hitman - and am currently playing Hitman III... which basically just devolves into me simply killing every single person in the level.
I don't like the difficulty levels of Hitman III though -- I wish there were a hell of a lot more victims to go after.
But the levels are AMAZING and fun and beautiful.
But anything that can capture the Hitman gameplay would be great.
The thief series was also amazing, but its so dated it doesnt run well on my super high-end gaming machine...
But one thing that was super cool in Thief were the arrow types: Moss, Rope, Water... Moss arrows hit the ground and spawn a soft bed of moss to allow for silent walking.
Agreed, the difficulty is way too low. I actually wouldn't mind if they literally made it realistic - get hit by one bullet and you're dead. I'd also like to see them experiment more with social engineering. Something like LA Noir, with branching conversations, where you have to talk your way into a scenario instead of sneaking in. Make the kills feel much more personal.
Makes me think of the Counter Strike map de_rats where you fought over the fridge, could hide in walls, use sponges as landing pads and iirc blow up the sink.
If only we could get the people who made “Ni no Kuni” to make a game out of “The Secret World of Arrietty“ (I highly recommend the UK English dubs if anyone hasn’t seen this yet).
This reminds me of the game Prisoner of War. The setting is completely different (you are a POW in a german concentration camp) but the mechanics are pretty much there:
- Live in the "walls" (barracks)
- Sneak out during curfew to do tasks and build things to open up more areas, and also for food
- You nurture a relationship with the other prisoners and new ones arrive often
Not that it's what you're looking for exactly. But if you like the idea of being as tiny being in a home with massive humans, check out Mister Mosquito on the PS2, or Chibi Robo on the GameCube.
Hah, I thought of the mosquito game too, but for some reason I thought it initially was released on the Dreamcast. But I can't find any mention of that.
There's a subplot from the show Solar Opposites (the show itself is just okay) where people who have been shrunk by alien children live in a segmented wall and form a society there - there's even mice.
Just to follow up: I watched this entire series and it really captured a lot of the vibe, ingenuity, brutalism, and collaboration that I was hoping for in such a world. Thanks for this recommendation!
I think that story in itself needs a show. In my opinion it’s better than the main storyline. The wall story has everything parent wants, going out to gather food, escaping dogs, riding mouse etc.
I can't seem to find it, but I read a description for a game in development that seemed really similar to this, a farming/crafting simulator where you start in the basement of a house and can expand to the kitchen etc. You have to avoid the house cat etc.
Totally different game of course, but this reminded me of Katamari Damacy! In many levels you start tiny in a room somewhere, and have to roll up paper clips and thumb tacks in order to grow and roll up successively larger things, while avoiding gigantic pets, and so on. Apart from being hilarious and sometimes challenging, I also found it an interesting psychological effect to come back to the same place when you're 100 times larger, now able to roll up humans, cars, the entire house... :)
Katamari is a casual game (I prefer this genre) but now I wonder if there would be some way to make a more "simulationist" game that uses this scaling effect somehow.
wow, thank you for recommending this - the graphics are not quite what I'm after, but the concept definitely is - albeit the tiny humans seem a bit too large to live in mouseholes
So i'm guessing it would be a mix between isometric view for open space (like if you had a Borrower City or sneaking outside of the walls, for example) but for climbing through the walls it would be top-down (or i guess, out to in).
I really like the idea; i'm thinking much in the same art style as something like Arrietty just slightly more western cartoonish vibes, but only subtle changes.
Well, no, obviously not. The Ghibli movie is a takeoff on the Borrowers series by Mary Norton; there is no reason to believe tetris11 had the movie in mind rather than the books he referred to by name.
The micro machines racing games or the ps1 era game Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue, might scratch some of the exploring houses as a little thing itch.
The idea reminds me to the game Sneaky Sasquatch (on Apple Arcade).
In that game you (a Sasquatch) has to steal food from campers, resolve some mysteries, play mini games, build your place, and go to work disguised as human.
Very close plot to an all but forgotten 1960s American Sci-Fi TV series produced by Irwin Allen (Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Poseidon Adventure) called Land Of The Giants
imdb.com/title/tt0062578/
It's the same premise because they're ideas based on the same thing. The OP mentioned The Borrowers as inspiration. Well The Secret World of Arrietty is based on The Borrowers. I think it's even called something like "Borrower Arrietty" in Japan as well.
You live as tiny mouse-sized humans existing with regular humans who should never know your presence as you occupy the walls and spaces in their home. Every day you must hunt for food, which involves collecting gear to traverse spaces (paperclip + string = grappling hook and rope, matchstick = torch, plastic bag = parachute) to reach places where food is stored (i.e. the kitchen - defended by the cruel cat, mousetraps - easy to find but deadly to use, others). There's also more than one of you with time, where you can find and recruit others from outside the house, mate to create a family base of increasing members (prompting you to expand more into the walls which will increase your chance of discovery by normal humans), and most importantly - coordinate scavenger hunts with your crew (think: one Borrower leads a climb and trails a rope down, allowing others to follow, where more people == more food for the base). Due to the high death rate, there are no main characters, just Borrowers.
[Extras]
- Riding or rearing mice? (they can lead you to the cheese and help dodge the cat)
- Stealing and riding a drone? (perhaps not such a rustic experience anymore)
- Turning your tiny wall cave into a thriving Borrower city complete with electricity and beer? (might require killing the humans)