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.
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.
