Playing a lot of Lonely Mountains Snow Riders this weekend. I really enjoyed its mountain-biking predecessor, and this version – on skis – is a treat. It adds a chaotic, fun multiplayer racing mode that gave me a surprisingly great co-op game last night, in which an opponent would zip ahead of me, then pause and turn to watch me descend to their location, emoting cheerful hearts and thumbs-ups.

When I yard-saled myself off a rock or into the river, which happened a lot on one of the maps we raced, they patiently waited, cheering me on, occasionally falling off their own skis so that we respawned together at the same checkpoint starting line to try the pitch again. When I finally found the right line, we glided together down the rest of the route, angling around long curves and dipping through a field of bumps before crossing the finish line to our camp. It was like skiing with a coach, or, sometimes, like skiing with my dad; and it reminded me of the surprise co-op session of Ashen that I played last fall, and was, 100%, the most wholesome and warm and encouraging game experience I’ve had in a long time.

Sometimes games are really good, gang.