This post is [participating in the Nexon PEAK Post Challenge].

There’s something genuinely lovely about sharing a hobby with your partner or spouse. And if that hobby happens to be gaming, the happiness doesn’t just double—it squares. Gaming can create quite a gap in perspective between people who play and people who don’t, after all. In that sense, my spouse Yeonho and I are pretty lucky. With one small exception: we don’t usually play the same games. Even so, there are times when we still team up and play together. We tend to enjoy different things, but every now and then, a new game comes along that appeals to both of us. These are three games that did exactly that.





Building together, Minecraft

Minecraft was actually a game the three of us played together—Yeonho, Yeonho’s younger sibling Chokkung, and me. Considering how long Minecraft has been around and how much history it has, I came to it fairly late. I first got into it through Yeonho and Chokkung. Maybe that’s why, since my first time with it was alongside the two of them, Minecraft has always felt more fun to me with other people than alone. We gathered materials together and built a house, worked the farm together, and even raised sheep and chickens. And whenever one of us was close to dying, someone would come running to help.

 Building together was fun too. In a way, collecting dirt and stone and turning them into a house might sound a little tedious, but there was something so satisfying about putting our heads together, deciding how we wanted to build, and stacking it all up piece by piece. What started as a small house gradually grew into a huge construction project. I still haven’t forgotten the day we defeated the Ender Dragon together. Minecraft gave us that joy—taking down the Ender Dragon and then flying through the sky afterward—and it really is such a fun game to play when you’re working together.

Living together with you, me, and our Pals, Palworld

My second recommendation is Palworld. To be honest, I’ve played Palworld both solo and with Yeonho. For me, it felt a little dull on my own. But with Yeonho, it’s genuinely a delight. Palworld recently had its official release, and to celebrate, we opened a fresh world together and have been enjoying it ever since. Yeonho, who loves exploration, is off running across new continents and diving into adventures, while I, who enjoy building and decorating, gather materials, build our home, and set up the production facilities.



 In Palworld, it’s hard to move on to the next stage if you focus only on adventuring or only on the life-sim side, so there’s a real sense of synergy when we each do what we enjoy and cooperate like this. Yeonho covers the parts where I’m slow, and I cover the parts where Yeonho is slow. And when a fight with a Pal starts going badly, it’s incredibly reassuring to know I have someone on my side I can call in right away.

Mabinogi Mobile is even more fun as a pair

And finally, Mabinogi Mobile. I’ve played Mabinogi Mobile with Yeonho, with friends, and with my younger sibling too. I’ve also enjoyed it with other users I met inside Mabinogi Mobile itself. It’s truly a wonderful game whether you play alone, with a group, or as a duo. You can really feel how much thought went into making it enjoyable in all those different ways.





The Dagda 4-player co-op missions were fun, and the 2-player co-op missions were too. I also loved that when our schedules didn’t line up with other friends, the two of us could still keep the adventure going through chance encounters with other users. And more than anything, the 2-person action motions are just so cute and lovely. There’s also something really fun about matching our poses to create one shared movement. We’re still playing Mabinogi Mobile even now, working together and reaching goals side by side, and honestly, I can’t think of a reason not to recommend it.

So today as well, to everyone reading this,

I hope you all find a little happiness,