Video games have come along way over the decades and have gone from niche hobby to full-blown mainstream activity. Almost everyone plays some form of a game or another. In 2018 almost everyone has some touch screen game on his or her cell phone or tablet. My girlfriend is not one of those people though. She is not opposed to video games but she never grew up with them. Once we began to get serious she wanted to participate. Jumping in with the right attitude is a great start, but some games come with a steep learning curve, so finding the right game can be the key to helping someone find a new hobby. For the purposes of this article we will be focusing on PC and console gaming. For this article I used my girlfriend as my test subject. She loves board games but rarely even plays games on her phone, so I figured she would be the best test case.
3Gone Home
This will be a spoiler free endorsement. This is an interactive story game where you explore your home and try and figure out exactly what happened. The game has some absolutely beautiful moments and a truly interesting mystery to try and figure out. There are no enemies or twitch based movements so anyone can move around and explore with a controller or keyboard.
My girlfriend and I would once again take turns with the controller and after thirty minute play sessions we would speculate about what we thought was going on. The ending was very satisfying for both of us and the play through sparked a great conversation. I think this may have been her favorite of the bunch in terms of gameplay. With the low stakes it is a great controller introduction game.
