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).

What gaming is like for a non-gamer

This guy had his non-gaming wife try different games, very enlightening for your purposes

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.

Others have said it and I agree, Stardew Valley. Don’t even need to buy a console.

Depending on your tolerance for low resolution graphics there are a literal lifetimes worth of games from NES to PS1 that can be emulated at better quality features available than the originals.

Evoquest 1-2 would be wild for you, the gameplay is designed to replicate the evolution from 8 bit to modern mobile gaming platforms. You’ll get a chance to “catch up” on what games have been like with a coherent story tying it together.

If you want to get into multi-player stuff there are a lot of MMOs out there for mobile as well.

Stardew Valley.

Well, what is it that you would like? Women usually go for stuff like the Sims, Stardew Valley or Zelda, maybe some of those are for you?

Do you want to play alone, are you looking for a group, …? The games I mentioned are usually played alone (Stardew can also be played with up to four friends) so they aren’t very social, but they are fun nonetheless.

Steam for your PC will have a large library of free games you can try, and also paid games. If you like board or card games there is an application called table top simulator. This opens up access to traditional board games people have converted to PC–when you can’t find it as a standalone game. Also a suggestion for standalone games if you are into cards:

• Wingspan. It has a steep learning curve but hours of fun once you learn it.

• Dominion. If you like this genre of game it can be a lot of fun.

• Catan. if you have played Catan board game and enjoy it, you can also play online for free https://catanuniverse.com/en/game/

Worth getting into? Absolutely. It can be very cheap, too.

Where to start? That’s the trick question. It will depend on whether you start with console or PC, the latter having a much more extensive catalogue of games, plus emulation of older systems.

My personal recommendation is getting a PC, it doesn’t even need to be a gamer one, anything that isn’t a piece of shit and was released in the past 4 or so years will do good for playing low end games and emulate anything up to N64 and possibly Dreamcast games (2003 and earlier). You can use a variety of console controllers on computer, so it’s fine. Whe searching for ROMs, be sure to have uBlock Origin installed on your web browser.

If you have any friends, talk to them, see what they’re playing or would recommend you to play. If you don’t, download steam and download demos of games that look somewhat interesting to you. Check GOG as well, it tends to have some older PC games as well, plus demos and whatnot.

Try out a variety of genres. It’s possible one game of a certain genre might not “click” with you, but another might.

Oh, there are so many kinds!

If you have a PC, why don’t you check out some free-to-play games on Stream? Or even a couple demos to see what you may like. I wouldn’t go straight into getting major equipment until you know a little more about what you like.

My grandma has been playing video games since before I was born. Her tastes have changed as she’s gotten older, but there’s absolutely something for everyone.

If you’re 100% a beginner, I may even go a step back to some flash games. Just to get used to moving around (if not using a controller) and some of the more common UI. There’s also a interesting series on YouTube called “gaming for non gamers” about a man and his wife who is trying out different genres. He goes over some things she misses just because she’s not used to it since some mechanics they just assume you know these days.

And be easy in yourself! A new hobby always has some rough points. There will be bad games, matches, complete wastes of time. But there will be some truly remarks gems in there. Good luck!

Get an emulation handheld and play some great retro games

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.

yes it is

Absolutely!!

There are video games that work like card games, you’d love Balatro or Magic the Gathering.

If you like puzzles, Tetris is the perfect start, its the greatest puzzle game of all time. Tetris Effect and Tetris 99 are good recent games for that.

If you want to graduate from Puzzles to something more gamey, I’d recommend any Mario or Zelda game, and to develop a game mind, Metroid and metroid-like games are excellent.

Many games work like movies too, so if you like movies those are nice.

If you like books, there is a genre of game called a visual novel, (most of those are from Japan though, but many have an English option for text)

Loads of great experiences and tons of diversity. I’ve had lot of great experiences through video games and it’s never too late to start.

You could start with by looking through some video game threads and asking more specific question like “I’m new to video games, what are some games that you recommend that are not to hard to pick up” or something.

Recommend: Portal

I personally think you should give Portal a shot, it’s a 3D puzzle game that you can run on any computer and is one of the best games of all time, it’s also pretty funny on top of that.

If you like puzzle games, Tetris effect is the greatest puzzle game I have ever played. I love horror games but Tetris is still fun as fuck. Never to old to get into gaming. Good luck!