I’m a 30 year old woman who’s only really played card and puzzle games on my phone. Im considering new hobbies. Is it worth trying to get into video games for the first time. Where would I even start.
Its such a vast ocean, I would just start with whatever catches your attention. Theres so many different kinds if games for all types of people that you should probably assess what you think is fun, and pick a game sort of involved with that? I tend to like cooperative games, RPGs, and games about exploring more than I like competitive games like First Person Shooters. I also really like racing games.
Yes. Start with Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing. From there, post threads asking for suggestions based on what you liked.
Just avoid games that cost a lot or have lots of micro transactions. Its like smoking cigarettes, better to not start.
What gaming is like for a non-gamer
This guy had his non-gaming wife try different games, very enlightening for your purposes
Excellent video!
Now I don’t feel so bad for struggling with later Rockman bosses and stages.
Holy crap there’s a ton of these that they’ve made?!
I’m a 30-something woman myself. I’ve been gaming longer than I’ve had a phone. Here’s my two cents:
You’re already into videogames. Fuck what the haters say about mobile gaming not being “”“true”“” gaming (whatever the heck that means), they’re just sour they can’t game whenever wherever without investing a ton of time. Then again, maybe I’m just mad because I’ve recently invested a ton of time into Youtube’s playables.
If you want to get into PC or console gaming, I recommend starting off with popular E rated games in the genres you already know you like. Generally these games are more complex than mobile games, but this type will usually introduce difficulty curves to gradually transition you into their mechanics and complexity and teach you to be a master without having to look up training online.
If you want to branch out, start with genre-bending/-blending games. I’m personally a fan of puzzle-platformers, as those are my two favorite genres; while I’m not big on card games, they recently had an explosion in popularity, so there’s a blend of just about every genre you could want.
Slay the Spire is a card based video game.
And it’s on mobile so she can start there without buying any new hardware
You are already a gamer!
I’m a 36 year old woman who grew up playing them with my dad. My sister is a year younger than me get than me. She grew out of it a bit but she still plays “cozy”, low to no pressure games. I like long role playing games with interesting stories.
If you want any recommendations or a new friend to play with, I’m here! I also know of several gaming groups for women.
I’d like to know more about what you’re interested to give better suggestions but here are a few that might pique your interest.
Balatro is a recently popular card game. You can play it on your phone or on a computer. It works sort of like poker, but you apply effects to the cards to multiply your score.
A Little To The Left is a puzzle game. You play the owner of a mischievous cat and your goal is to reorganize the messes that your cat made throughout the house, like sorting the mail, organizing a battery draw, displaying sea shells you collected etc
Unpacking is also a puzzle game. You literally unpack boxes in various rooms. Sometimes it’s hard to make everything fit. As you progress through each level, you learn about the main character’s life.
If you want something more traditional, Ori and the Blind Forest is absolutely beautiful. In that, you play as a small guardian spirit and you navigate through a forest solving puzzles, collecting items, and jumping between platforms (sorta like Mario).
Start with stardew valley and thank me later.
This is a good entry but may feel daunting to someone whos never played video games.
If you do play stardew valley, you may want to watch introduction videos on YouTube
One more day… just one more day… need to those gold star crops… got to go fish… shit need bait, got to go to the mine… one more day… just one more day…
This. My ex loved this game
Something else to consider is that it’s a wonderful social window if you have friends that you don’t get to hang out with very often due to geography and life.
I have a couple of good friends who are too far away after I moved to another area. We play games online and have a nice social hangout for a few hours each Saturday. Voice chatting works great.
It’s fantastic to be able to regularly spend time with them.
This!
I would highly recommend Portal and Portal 2 as primers for basically all your 3D games. Not only did Yahzee give The Orange Box in general a glowing review, but they teach you basic gaming mechanics almost intuitively.
I’d recommend Portal and its (much better) sequel Portal 2. Excellent puzzle games, good writing, fun characters and short. It should take you abojt 3-5 hours if you have never played a 3D video game before.
Oh and btw the website linked is Steam, the most beloved PC game buying plateform. Be aware that you shouldn’t buy the games at full price on stem, check websites like instant gaming, humble bundle or fanatical to get better deals (-80% sometimes!) On these alternative websites you will get a code that has to be activated in the steam app (downloaded on your computer). Search “activate steam game code” on YouTube for explanations on how to do that.
Portal should cost about ~3$ now (it’s a 2007 game so it can run on basically anything)
Of course portal and portal 2 are fantastic games but I would never recommend them to someone who has never played a game before. One of the reasons it’s so good is because it subverts the tropes and even mechanics of other games.
A place to start might be a friend or family member who is into video games.
Gaming hardware can be a little costly, so you may want to visit with someone and play a selection of games before deciding which direction you’d like to start in. I’ll also point out that video games are often the very most fun when shared with friends.
If my 30 year old woman friend came up to me one day and said “Hey I’ve never really played video games before and I’d like to give them a try, but don’t know where to start,” I think we’d talk awhile first to see if I can find what games are interesting to you. I see a lot of people in this comment section recommending Stardew Valley, which is a game I deeply like and respect though I have seen people bounce right off it, including someone recently here on Lemmy. So while I would recommend giving it a look, if you do bounce off it, don’t just go “video games aren’t for me,” maybe cozy games aren’t for you.
Some questions I might ask are:
Are you looking for a more relaxing or more exciting experience?
Would you like your play sessions to be challenging, contemplative, creative, or competitive?
Are you more interested in story, or gameplay?
How important are flashy fancy graphics to you?
Where will your gameplay sessions fit into your life? Do you want something to do during your daily train ride? Will this replace your daily television hour? Is it what you’re going to do all Saturday afternoon?
Do you see yourself playing games on your couch, at a desk, or on the go?
Do you want to enjoy games alone, or with friends? Will you gather in one place to play together, or play across the internet?
Do you have a genre of fiction you like? Are you into historical drama, sci-fi, fantasy, slapstick comedy?
How do you feel about horror? Both the psychological Lovecraftian existential crisis type, and the “oh god a 10 foot monster with 50 mouths for a mouth just jumped out behind a tree and roared” type?
I’m 31 and I only really started playing games around 4 years ago, apart from playing on bootleg NES consoles or C64 as a kid.
It is worth it if you have fun doing it, and you probably will!
If you don’t know where to start, you probably still haven’t figure out what genres you’d be into.
You might like Steam Deck, an affordable console-like handheld PC, because:
- It offers a wide variety of games from all generations, so if you want to experiment with different genres you can always find something for yourself - you can purchase a game on Steam store and if it’s not for you, just return it below 2h of gameplay
- Very user friendly, easy to navigate for non-techies, despite being PC, for the most part it just works, great entry for folks with no prior experience with PC gaming
- It’s a handheld! Take it with you anywhere easily, play in bed, on couch, toilet, whatever. If you’re used to playing on a phone, this might be appealing
- you can still dock it as a regular PC and have mouse+keyboard+external screen if you want to try gaming this way
- if you want to tinker to explore even further, you can emulate older consoles, play with 3rd party launchers, use it for other things than gaming, even replace the software completely - it is all possible
Other choices are perfectly valid like Nintendo Switch, Xbox or PS5, but they’re within their respective closed ecosystems. With Xbox and PS5 you’re also stuck with TV. Consoles have limited backwards compatibility, so for example Switch only supports games for Switch, PS5 supports games for PS5 and PS4, and it’s a bit better with Xbox iirc.
If you want Nintendo Switch (if games like Mario or Zelda are appealing to you), maybe wait a little bit as they’re cooking new generation for release soon-ish, and the current one is old and miserable in terms of performance.
Stardew Valley.
There are some decent to good video games available on Android & iPhone, of a wide variety of genres.
If you have the self discipline to not let gaming take over all your spare time (whistles innocently while totally not looking in mirror), it’s absolutely worth getting into.
Where to start? I recommend keeping it simple. If you don’t already own a desktop or laptop computer at home, it’s probably easiest to stick with games on your phone.
- ask friends & family what games they play, particularly those who fall on the same side of the Apple/Google divide as you.
- open your app store and look at lists of popular games by genre. Pick a free one, download it, and try it out. If you don’t like it, delete it and try another one.
- if there’s a news or culture site whose judgement you trust & like to follow, even if it’s not a technology or gaming related site, it’s worth spending a couple minutes to see if they have review articles or recommendation lists available. You can even find a related Lemmy community and ask there.
Personally, I play the following:
- an older logic puzzle game
- a free klondike solitaire game
- Egg, Inc - this is an idle incremental game available on both iOS & Android
- Leaf Blower Revolution - just started this one. It’s in the idle incremental genre as well. Available on iOS, Android, and through Steam. Supports cross platform play by way of cloud saves. I picked it up a week ago and it has been fun so far.
I don’t have the reflexes for active combat games. I like RPGs but prefer to play those on desktop.
I would highly recommend not starting with phone games. 90% of them are designed to be addicting, borderline gambling games, which you can collect or accomplish more things if you just pay them an easy $2 or more… which quickly turns into $20, which then becomes $50+. Before you know it, you’re throwing hundreds of dollars at what is essentially a repetitive unending game, just for the dopamine hit.
I know; my wife is addicted to these games and I see $20 charges to our bank account every few days. Nothing ever changes in her games. She never progresses anywhere and there’s no end to the game, but it gives her a boost on scores or collectibles or rare limited items, so she drops the money. It’s been especially hard to break her of the habit.
I got her to sign up for Steam on her desktop PC and I gifted her a few co-op games, and so we play games online together to give her something fun to do that doesn’t require spending money to progress. She used to be awful at FPS games, but playing with me gave her more confidence and practice, and now she’s pretty decent.
She really loves Deep Rock Galactic, because a lot of the game is just mining and resource-collecting, with only a little alien bug shooting. She plays as the engineer, so she can set up a turret and not have to worry too much about aiming herself. Plus, playing solo means she gets Bosco, the flying droid, to help her with combat and resource-collecting too. If I’m not around to play with her, she has all the assistance she needs to relax and enjoy the game. It was a very good intro to video games for her.
Games can be one of the nice forms of entertainment like tv series or films, so i’d say yes.
Just try to look for really good games, like zelda breath of the wild, bioshock infinite, twelve minutes, sayonara wild hearts and so on. No online games, no infinite games, no games that are more like a job than a game (where you have to grind for everything) and so on. Games that let you enjoy the gameplay, the art and the story without making you feel like ‘‘oh i have to login or i lose the fit and i have to get the daily rewards and bla bla bla’’.
Good advice. Solo player games where you actually buy them is usually a safe bet. If it’s free, they’ll want your money later or make it an impossible grind. It’s a bit of the same on the mobile side so OP is probably aware.
You can make some searches about good games for new comers because of all the games I’m currently playing, none would be a good start.
Done recently that could work :
Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s turn by turn so not reliant on mechanical skills. Can be played on concoles or pc with keyboard or controller. The story is so amazing. The acting, the branching, the choices… Loved it.
Frostpunk. Game where you try to save people gathered around a generator cause the earth is now ice cold. You manage ressources and tech to meet people expectations. They’ll have demands but you can’t say yes to everything. Hard choice. Can be kinda hard but you just start over the scenario with the knowledge you just got. It’s mostly just figuring things out…
Skyrim? I liked the story / setting. I don’t know if that aged alright or if there’s something better in the same genre that could be welcoming. I remember that it wasn’t particularly hard. On easy it should be more focused on the story / immersion.
Why are you recommending the worst BioShock game as a really good game? Shouldn’t a person start with the best BioShock game, BioShock? Or at least start with the second best BioShock game, BioShock 2? It just doesn’t make sense to start with the one BioShock game that actually kinda sucks, that being BioShock Infinite.
bioshock infinite
no infinite games
🤔
