Fru
Platforms: Xbox 360 and Xbox One
Genres: Physically Active and Platform
Released: June 2016. Added to this library 4 months ago, last updated 10 weeks ago.
Overview
This is a platform game with a twist. One player uses a controller to run and jump around the level; a second player stands in front of the Xbox Kinect camera and appears on the screen in silhouette. This person must use the outline of their body to create platforms and interact with the world to help the character reach the end of each level. This interaction between body and the screen means the player must communicate and time their movements with the controlling player.
This collaboration is a simple idea but is cleverly executed with levels that stretch the partnership – and bodily contortions – to the limit.
This game is good if you want to have silly fun together, exercise without realising it, reconsider your body or work in a team to win.
Commitment
Costs
Ratings
Accessibility
System settings: Xbox One has a wide range of system features including some that can be used on all games, like the excellent co-pilot mode... read more.
Similar Games
The following games address a similar topic or offer a similar way to play. They are good options to play after Fru, and also offer a range of alternatives for different age ratings.
Kissy Kissy
Platforms: Mac, Nintendo Switch and PC
Genres: Platform
Duration: Between 5 minutes and 10 minutes to play a round.
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online.
Costs: Free-to-start.
Kissy Kissy! is a running-around game where you build defences against getting kissed by the grannies. You play Tiger and Bee, onesie-wearing grandchilden who don't want to be kissed
Twelve a Dozen
Duration: Between 15 minutes and half an hour to play a round.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Free-to-start. In-game purchases.
Twelve a Dozen (originally called just, Twelve) is a running and jumping game where you solve mathematical based logic problems to help Dot save her family. While many games use learning as a gate to the reward of some fun, Twelve integrates the maths...
Snipperclips
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Duration: Between 5 minutes and 10 minutes to play a round.
Players: You can play with 4 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online.
Costs: Free-to-start.
This is a game where you play a piece of paper that can be cut into different shapes. Through a series of puzzle levels, you adjust your shape by clipping and overlapping other players. Sometimes this is to match a shape, at others it is to catch a ball...
Tetris (Series)
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Genres: Puzzle
Duration: Between 5 minutes and 20 minutes to play a round.
Players: You can play this with 100 players online.
Costs: Free.
Tetris is a longstanding puzzle game where you make horizontal lines by placing different shaped tiles in a well. It's simple and fun, but as the pieces speed up it gets increasingly difficult.
Bounden
Genres: Physically Active and Puzzle
Duration: Between 3 minutes and 5 minutes to play a round.
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Bounden is a smartphone dance game that gets players to use their bodies. Two people hold opposite ends of one smartphone then move together to keep a cursor over the ball.
Prune
Genres: Puzzle and Simulation
Duration: Between 3 hours and 5 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Prune involves slicing, but here you must carefully cut off tree branches to encourage the tree to grow in a particular direction. It starts simply but turns into a challenge for parents and young children to work on together.
Fez
Platforms: Mac, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360 and iOS
Duration: Between 7 hours and 10 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
Fez is a dimension based puzzle game where you, as a small character called Gomez, can rotate between four 2D views of the 3D world (as four sides around a cube-like space). This sounds confusing but actually develops into a mind-stretching and...
Ring Fit Adventure
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Genres: Action, Adventure, Fighting and Physically Active
Duration: Between 5 minutes and 1 hour to play a round.
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online.
Costs: Purchase cost.
This is a running and jumping adventure game with a difference. You control your character with the circular plastic Ring-Con in your hands and Leg-Strap on your leg. The game can then tell how much you are moving and relate that to progress in the game.
Shadow Puppeteer
Platforms: Nintendo Wii U and PC
Genres: Adventure and Platform
Duration: Between 4 hours and 7 hours to complete.
Players: You can play with 2 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online.
Costs: Purchase cost.
In Shadow Puppeteer one player controls a shadow and the other player controls the main character. Their task is to help each other progress through a series of platform levels to recover stolen shadows from their hometown.
Joust Mania
Platforms: Mac, PC, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4
Genres: Action, Fighting and Physically Active
Players: You can play with 16 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online.
Costs: Free.
This movement-sensitive game of tag is played in the real world, holding PlayStation Move motion controllers. First appearing as one of the games in the Sportsfriends pack, and then evolving as Joust Mania with more modes and up to 16 players, it’s an...
Wii Sports (Series)
Platforms: Nintendo Wii and Nintendo Wii U
Genres: Action, Fighting, Physically Active, Racing and Sports
Duration: Between 10 minutes and 45 minutes to play a round.
Players: You can play with 4 players in the same room, but you can’t play it online.
Costs: Purchase cost. Season pass and in-game purchases.
Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort and Wii Sports Club offer motion-controlled sports. Although these games are well known, the depth each of them offer is a best-kept secret. Games like bowling, tennis and boxing are easy to pick up but require considerable...
The Gunstringer
Platforms: Xbox 360
Genres: Action, Narrative, Physically Active, Platform, Puzzle and Shooting
Duration: Between 6 hours and 8 hours to complete.
Players: This is a single player game.
Costs: Purchase cost.
The Gunstringer is an Xbox Kinect camera game where you use your body to control a cowboy puppet and shoot the villains by forming a gun with your fingers. You can play with two people working together, with one player controlling the character’s...
Fru is in These Lists
In addition to the similar games listed above, which have been linked to this game specifically in the database, you may find games with a similar theme to Fru in the following lists:
Work Together to Thrive
Along with teamwork, the games I’ve selected here use the fact that players are all sitting next to each other.
These are games where players take on different roles in order to complete unusual tasks. The fun is often as much about the conversations (and arguments) that happen in the room as what’s happening on the screen.
Embrace Silliness
Whether it's the crazy puzzles in Baba is You or Twister-like contorsions of Fru or stomach churningly difficulty of walking in Octodad Deadliest Catch, these are games that will make you shreek and laugh together. Then there are silly multiplayer games like Super Pole Riders, Heave Ho or Wii Party where parents, carers and children take on bizarre or precarious challenges. The play often descends into giggling and laughter.
Get Fit Playing Great Games
Know Your Body
This is not only an enjoyable way to escape the reality of daily life but a chance to reflect on and understand ourselves, and our bodies, better. Stepping into the shoes of a vulnerable, small or endangered character can help us understand for a short while some of what it is like to be someone else.
Whether this is into the awkward teenage years of Mord and Ben in Wide Ocean Big Jacket, the grandparent-escaping Tiger and Bee in Kissy Kissy, the fractured heartbroken body in Gris or the haphazard movement of Octodad we have a chance to reassess our own physicality and how we respond to and treat other people's physicality.
More specifically, to use body therapy language, games offer us a chance to discover the inviolability of our bodies, personal autonomy, self-ownership, and self-determination. In travel, as Andrew Soloman says, we go somewhere else to see properly the place where we have come from. In video games, we step into other bodies so we can better understand our own and those of the people around us.
Thanks for using our resource. We are editorially independant, written by parents for parents, but welcome sponsorship, partnership and suggestions. It is supported by the Get Smart About PLAY campaign from AskAboutGames.com. For more advice and guidance on video games, also check out my Taming Gaming book.Tweet
Email a correction for Fru.