Roundup
Nine games your group can learn before the pizza arrives
No tutorial, no meta, no homework. A shortlist for the friend who joins the call at eleven and has to leave at midnight, and for the one who has never held a mouse properly.
The constraint is real and most co-op games fail it: can a group of four learn this well enough to enjoy it before the food arrives? Not master it. Just stop asking which button is which.
The games that pass tend to share a shape. One verb, learned in the first ten seconds, and then complications that come entirely from other people rather than from the interface.
Supermarket Together passes because the job is legible on sight. Chained Together passes because the rule is in the title. Ultimate Chicken Horse passes because the tutorial is watching one other person die.
The ones that fail usually fail on inventory. Any game that opens with a grid and a crafting recipe has already spent the pizza window, and the group will quietly migrate to something else without ever articulating why.
It is a low bar and a surprisingly good filter. If you have to explain it twice, it is not a friendslop game — it is a game you will play alone and recommend unsuccessfully for months.