My co-op partner looks up every puzzle before I know we are stuck
My cousin and I bought a cooperative puzzle game because we live in different states and wanted something slower than our usual action games. The first hour was exactly what I hoped for. We talked through clues, made terrible diagrams, and celebrated opening a door as if we had escaped an actual basement.
During the second session, we reached a room with rotating symbols. I started reading the walls. My cousin went quiet for perhaps twenty seconds, then said, “Okay, put the bird on the left and turn the center twice.”
I asked how he knew. He had found a guide on his phone.
He did not think this was a problem because the room had stopped being fun for him. The issue is that I had not even decided we were stuck. I was still enjoying the confusion. Since then, I notice the same pattern whenever the answer is not immediate. He searches while I am exploring, then delivers a clean instruction that turns the puzzle into data entry.
We tried a “no guides for ten minutes” rule. He now announces how many minutes remain like we are waiting for a microwave. At minute ten, even if I am close, he reaches for his phone. I suggested that he give hints instead of answers, but hints from a walkthrough have a suspicious way of becoming “look specifically behind the third painting.”
The strange part is that he is not impatient everywhere. He will spend an entire evening adjusting a character build. He just hates being uncertain in a shared puzzle because he feels responsible for blocking me. I do not blame him for having a different frustration threshold. I do blame the silent search, because once he sees the solution, neither of us can unsee it.
Should we abandon puzzle games as a pair, or is there a better agreement? I am considering a rule that either person can request a hint, but neither can look one up unilaterally. If one person wants out, we stop for the night rather than solving by search. That sounds fair to me and possibly miserable to him.
How do other co-op pairs handle different definitions of “stuck”? I want room to wrestle with a problem without trapping someone I like in an activity he has already stopped enjoying.