Teaching someone to play video games

I forgot to email in to the Bombcast to ask this question, but i figure i will get better results here anyway.

I want play video games with my wife, but she doesn't play and always says its because she sucks at games. she always says "I even sucked at mario when i was a kid!"

While I have tried to explain that being bad at Mario doesn't mean you are bad at games.

Anyway, I want to teach her to play video games but I don't know where to start. I was thinking of starting with Halo because that is the first shooter I played and is one of my favorites. I figure you all have better ideas than that, so what games should i play with my wife? I would prefer if they are multiplayer and if it is a pc game and I definitely need game pad support .

Thanks duders!

EDIT: after reading through all of these suggestions i decided to start with Gone Home. sadly she did not like gone home one bit. i assumed it would be a good start because it isn't too mechanically complicated, but she didn't like that she didn't have an immediate goal, or mission. luckily she is still up to play some games but i'm back at square one, not knowing what we can play together.

Maybe it would make sense to start with a (first person) walking sim? I think for someone with zero experience that would probably be an easier, less frustrating way to get accustomed to the concept of simultaneous twin-stick first person movement and camera controls (and to modern controllers in general that have kind of a lot of buttons). Like, I don't want to make this hobby enjoyed by millions of children and people of varying degrees of intelligence sound like rocketscience, but I imagine that some of the things we take for granted could be a bit more challenging for an adult who didn't grow up with that stuff.

Maybe a shorter, narrative driven experience would be the best. Something like Gone Home, or Firewatch. Maybe a Telltale game. An investment in story would def help in seeing the game to the end. You also can't really "lose" at these games.

I think a lot of games can be intimidating or difficult to control. Some first person shooters may involve too many buttons or controls (walk, aim, shoot, melee, etc.) to wrap your mind around. Even something that, I think at least, controls great like Metal Gear Solid V may be weird to a newcomer who has to handle stealth, shooting, using the D Pad to equip/unequip items, melee, etc..

For me I would try to focus on the types of games that would interest her if possible. Maybe she thinks she "sucks are Mario", but is still interested in that type of game? Maybe there is a game with a story that could appeal to her?

I think a game like Gone Home (EDIT: or as somebody else suggested Firewatch) is a good possibility, since that game is based on walking around and occasionally picking something up. Other narrative games with less gamey mechanics could be good choices. While The Walking Dead was one of the top examples of this from a few years ago, the random sections where it turns into a not great first person shooter may not be super appealing. I may point to a game like Life Is Strange instead.

There are other games that have limited interaction which would be less of a barrier to some people. Like Cibele is a game with no mechanics outside of using a fake OS and randomly clicking during the MMORPG sections. Her Story is mainly based on typing and could in theory be played with you at the computer and her suggesting what to search for. For example, about a year ago I showed Her Story to a friend and his girlfriend. While I knew everything, I just sat back and let them figure out what to search for. He was at the computer interacting with the game, but both of them were figuring everything out together. It was sort of how The GBeast played Contradiction last year. An experience like that may be a good gateway.

Co-op games also seems like a good option, since you are working together to get through a level or meet an objective. I think maybe something like Super Mario 3D World would be a better introduction than a Halo, since I still think a lot of first person games can be off putting for new players.

Halo might not be a good start. Coming from a lady gamer who has herself had to teach other girls to play games...shooters and hard core rpg's can be intimidating. I agree with beeryayghost's idea of gone home or fire watch. I also would recommend games like Kirby (kirby's epic yarn for the wii is one of the best for new game players) or something simple like tetris might be good as well.

Also I don't know if she will see these posts but: As a girl who also sucked at Mario as a kid I can attest your missing out girl by not giving it a shot again. There are SO many games out there that your bound to find some you like. The best thing to remember is games are meant to be fun. If you try a game and it's stressing you out, move on to a different game. =) Don't let anyone put you down while your learning ether. EVERYONE was new at games once, even the most hard core gamers. Just have fun! It's a great chance to bound with your significant other. Heck thats how I ended up on this site. My hubby was a huge fan, and I made myself watch/listen to the videos on podcasts. Now I'm a bigger fan of GB than he is hahaha.

Halo might be kinda tough... The problem with games like Halo is a) action games are hard to control for beginners and b) it's easy for co-op players to give up and let a more skilled player take care of the action.

It depends on what she likes, I reckon. A story-focused game is easy but might not be for everyone either. She might like an arcade-style game like Overcooked or Tokyo Jungle better. A turn-based game is easier to manage too (JRPG's, XCOM, Renowned Explorers, etc). Simulation games (like business tycoons) might also be easier to relate to.

If you're up for the emotional ride, Journey is a hell of a place to start. Controls are accessible with a lot of room for error, and it supports six-axis so she doesn't have to worry about using a second thumbstick for camera (something that a lot of folks get hung up on.)

If you don't have access to a PS3 or PS4, I'll second Her Story. It's a fun game to play with someone else watching because you can throw theories and speculation back and forth too.

Also watching some of the giant bomb best-of videos might be a good way to intro someone into games. Shows that folks can socialise and have fun while playing stuff!

If she doesn't think she's good at games and doesn't have confidence in her abilities, absolutely do not start with an action-packed FPS, or almost any first-person game at all. It can be insanely intimidating to try and get your bearings while people are yelling and shooting and exploding at you. If you want to give her a slow experience and trust she can handle FPS controls, Gone Home is a good starting place because it can be accessed entirely at your own pace. Firewatch has a few events that cause some serious time pressure feelings, so maybe avoid that one.

I've had a lot of fun in the past with YAWHG, which is a multiplayer choose-your-own-adventure, more or less. My girlfriend is also way into Tricky Towers, a physics-based Tetris-like. If you want to have a video game as a more social tool, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes can be a good way of getting someone comfortable with the idea of video games without engaging too deeply with mechanics or tactics. Her Story, like some people have mentioned, is a good way to get her engaged with a game while not necessarily having to control one. Point and click games might be good for that too. Anything where she can bounce ideas off of you and make things happen without much risk, really.

thanks for the suggestions! i actually have gone home on steam and i have never gotten around to playing it so this will be a good chance to help her get used to the controller without all the pressure, and for me to finally see that game.

also i think super mario 3d world would be a decent start. its co-op so i can help her through things.

Thw first game i made my gf play was limbo. She loved it. Then she played Botanicula, and loved it as well. We then played through most of the witness solving puzzles together with me walking because as it turns out fp controls aren't that easy to wrap your mind around when you're a beginner.

So these would be my suggestions. Try to introduce her to games that require figuring things out and have a good learning curve. From my experience dexterity, timinh and precision based games can be quite frustrating for a novice, and games requiring knowledge of general gaming concepts like RPGs or strategy games will probably be overwhelming unless they have really ezcellent tutorials and interfaces.

Any game with reflexes is hard to start on.

My girlfriend started with Icewind Dale back in the day. While she loves to play RPGs on the PC and gun games/racing games in the arcade, she can't do console FPS games or games with a large number of skills. She got really into Skyrim, since I could alter her stats and give her a big HP buff. But, she'd still get motion sick pretty quickly, no matter what FOV I used. (Though, changing the FOV to 90 allowed her to play for longer periods of time before she got a headache).

If she's never played a first person game and you -really- want her to get into that genre? Start with Go Home. Death is never inches away from you. A mis-placed button press won't mean death. You're not dealing with bright alien lights. Just a house to get used to moving around in.

May I suggest a game like Viva Pinata or Cities Skylines? A Theme Park game, perhaps? Or a hack and slash loot game. If Diablo is too gory, Torch Light might be a good one to go to.

This is exactly what I do. I always give them The Witness to play first. It has a game within it's utterly boring mechanical set up. I have to admit that piece of garbage of a game is actually pretty fun when you let someone else play it. You start to really appreciate how it's shitiness is actually great for such a person. You'll find they have a hard enough time navigating the line through the tedious as balls puzzles and they actually get faster over time. Because The Witness sure has it's charm and is fun for an hour or two, it is definitely the best shitpile of a game to play first I think.

I don't like The Witness beyond it's playability with people who don't game much.

You know I just thought about this. As someone who grew up with PC shooters, I've found controllers to be incredibly weird for it. To ease someone in that genre I theorize, but can't substantiate, that a mouse driven FPS might be a better fit. If she uses a mouse at work or in general she has way better motor skills with that than a stick. Maybe this is why stuff like MOBAs and Farmville enjoy/enjoyed such a big audience?

I would suggest stuff like Telltale games that make it a couples game and what I've personally found and what made for example get used to the PS controller, Journey. You can then ramp it up or down depending on how she takes to it.

My girlfriend really enjoyed playing through Valiant Hearts: The Great War together. Journey freaked her out because of having to move the camera and her character simultaneously at some points (something that didn't even occur to me as it's second nature by now).

I thought the goal of Gone Home was to learn how boring and pretentious indie games can be. That's a joke. You can put down your pitchforks. I actually did play the game to completion, and while I didn't really care for it, I appreciate that it's out there. You can never have enough options and variety when it comes to media.

Anyhow, try Portal. You still be learning first-person controls, but you also have puzzles, goals, and even comedy. Definitely play the original Portal first, and don't start with the sequel. If you can grab a copy of The Orange Box on 360 or PS3, that should work nicely.

The Stanley Parable would also be a great choice for comedy and exploration, but not so much for puzzles. I think that one is PC only, though.

Personally I'd avoid first person games all together. Moving and looking at the same time is very much a skill that takes time to learn, and grappling with that difficulty will take away from any enjoyment she could possibly have with the game.

My girlfriend is 100% not a gamer, but (and this is quite an out-there suggestion that may not apply to you two) she absolutely loves Super Exploding Zoo. It's simple, 2D and cute, and appeals to both of us because of the silliness and animal theme. I'd heartily recommend playing something 2D, but also try and choose a game that is subject matter she'd enjoy. You'd have a much better chance if she's into it from the get go, rather than having to persuade her to try it (trust me, I've been there and it doesn't work out, no matter how good the actual game is).

If she's never really played a video game before (hard to imagine but whatever), go with a story-driven adventure game like Walking Dead or Life Is Strange or Journey. Move gradually towards more complicated games. It's not necessarily the content or themes that can be hard to get into, but control complexity when your hands aren't used to using one

A simple but good narrative story driven game would be a good start. If the story is engaging then she'll be more motivated to carry on playing a game even if she is struggling a bit at first.

I think people are going at this the wrong way. Narrative driven games are fun and engaging, but almost all of them require dual-input methods (two sticks or wasd+mouse). It's super hard and disorienting to play games like LiS, Journey, or even Until Dawn by yourself as your first foray into games. It's even worse when you have someone standing over your shoulder and you can feel the weight of that person's expectations.

If anything, the best option is to go for games that are simple, yet fun and engaging. Basically any of the LEGO games that don't require camera control are fantastic starting points. You can play them co-op, they're relatively funny, and there's almost certainly some franchise tie-in that'll be of interest. Another option is Diablo 3 co-op, and is now super usable with a controller. Arcadey games like Tetris, Bomberman, Peggle, etc are also good choices.

Dual-input controls are never the best way to get someone into games. It's way too hard of a launching point. Hell, I stopped playing console games only a few years ago and now a controller feels like a foreign object. Locked camera perspective is one of the most helpful things for beginners, IMO! My parents played Myst using just the mouse, and even though it would frustrate the hell out of someone who can better control games, it made the entire experience significantly better for them.

@mattimus_prime: I think something like Animal Crossing might be good. You don't have to spend a lot of time with it each day and it does have the goal of paying off your loan and getting a bigger house. Stardew Valley would be the PC equivalent.

This forum is kind of old at this point, so I doubt anyone will see this final update. But we finally found a game that she liked playing and it comes as a huge surprise to me, and probably all of you. Call of duty black ops! Zombies mode specifically, I think she enjoys working together to kill all the zombies, and she seems to be getting the hang of it. We started playing it at our friends house last week and we have now gone out and bought our own copy and have been playing together! Now she wants to try other games too!

@mattimus_prime: That sounds great! Good to hear you found something in the end.

Honestly. Co-op any of the lego games. They're straightforward enough and you're always accomplishing something (getting more lego pieces). Complex enough in some ways (you'll both die but with little consequence). For me, I played lego Lotr with my wife and a bit of Jurassic Word lego coop but she finished the Jurassic one on her own once she was comfortable enough with the controls

Not the result I was expecting! Perhaps the Horde mode in Gears of War 4 would interest you both.

@mattimus_prime: I'm in a similar situation but my wife just started playing Overcooked with me and she loves it. I don't know what it is about this game but it seems to strike a cord with so many non-gamers on so many different levels. Try that one if you have the ability for some couch co-op! I've tried throwing my wife into narrative driven experiences similar to Gone Home and have had similar results. I think there truly needs to be an immediate goal to achieve to keep people who are uninitiated into modern gaming interested. For example, most people who started and stopped at Mario immediately had a simple goal to understand - go right and get flag. In the case of Overcooked - grab food, chop food, cook food, deliver food. Simple, unambiguous goals.

I would seriously try Overcooked! It may not launch her into wanting to dive into Dark Souls but it will at least be a fun experiences and a great test of your marriage! Good luck and report back if you go this route!

Recently got the Portal games on steam from the thanksgiving sale. Those would be a good follow up to the walking sim.