You've (not you, you. Well.. maybe you, you, lets see.) have forgotten what its like to have never played or been exposed to video games and it shows.
Every single time this stuff gets brought up, every single time without fail stuff like minecraft, portal, skyrim this stuff gets brought up, oh youve never played a game before? Start with these!
No. Absolutely not.
I want you to try and think back, way back, to when you didn't know how to use a controller. Lets not forget who we are talking about, lets try and look at the xbox controller as it stands today through the eyes of someone thats NEVER seen such a thing before.
Why does it have two sticks? Oh they move, like joysticks or something? Whats this plus sign, why are there colored jelly M&M's, whats under here? A trigger? Wait that cant be right, theres two?! Why are the things on the front clicky?! What way do I hold this?
The controller today may as well be an F16 fighter cockpit to a first timer.
This is who we are talking about.
This is the person thats gonna spend the next hour running into walls, or staring at the floor/sky, or a combination of all those things together asking "where am I?"
This sub seems to have a huge disconnect with the idea that games that are presented to be simple aesthetically, are simple. Portal is a NIGHTMARE mode game for new players.
GRAB A BOX?! This is an impossible challenge never before attempted, NOT a simple menial task for a veteran with thousands of hours behind them of the language of videogames.
Putting a box on a button in the center of a room is a task thats going to take 100% of their concentration, if they can even do it. The very concept that the legs and eyes are disconnected, require a different joystick or lord help you mouse and keyboard. My god. Their first game.
Let alone when they need to do 4th dimensional trick shots to fling themselves upside-down across rooms to hit buttons so solve puzzles while trying to remember what the left stick does and what an "a button" even is... I mean are we for real?!
And then MINECRAFT, holy hell you guys have to be TROLLING with this.
You guys have forgotten that the dexterity you have built up and then forgotten you ever had to do that, in order to navigate virtual worlds thoughtlessly, is seen as some impossible skill to a brand new player.
Now, they will get there, of course, but its going to take hours and hours, not a level or two. We are talking maybe days and multiple game sessions, and to become thoughtless? Weeks at best.
Straight up, 3D, worse 1st person games are OUT. COMPLETELY. For first game? Forget about it.
You know what the best 1st game is. TETRIS. Thats where these people are.
Heres some actually good suggestions for their ACTUAL skill level. DOOM. Not immortal or whatever, im talking 1993. Left, right, forward, shoot, also health and health pickups. Thats it. Thats the whole game. Thats the maximum complexity they can handle.
For a first timer, thats HARD. And they will die, a LOT. On the first level.
Wanna go more modern? Animal crossing! Stardew valley is pushing it, but quite good. Worms Armageddon. Pokemon. The sims. Any Civilization game. Some, but very much not all platformers(if you are thinking Terraria youre still joking, think Mario 1). I was thinking maybe xcom, but even that is too much, all the abilities. Dunno maybe.
Heres the thing, the games you think are dead boring are dead boring because you mastered the basics a long time ago. The equivalent here is a kid doing their first ride on a bike screaming "im really doing it, look at me!" and the bored teen riding home one handed.
These games arent boring, they are simple. Portal is not simple, its presentation is. Minecraft is probably one of the most complicated games ever made, even if you can come up with a list that beats it, thats not the point, if you've never touched a game before it might as well be a nuclear reactor control panel.
What we are really talking about is game literacy.
The very idea that you can press a button on a controller and that do things in the game is kinda novel. That the bottom A button or equivalent always jumps is a literacy problem that you have mastered, probably without realizing. You can read the language of games. That takes time.
I saw someone suggest the Stanley Parable. That game is the culmination of game literacy, a huge part of the enjoyment is the subversion of those readings. I mean, hell, even the fact that the narrator is talking to YOU and you can make CHOICES is a skill gained from game literacy conventions that are not yet developed.
Runescape classic is a good one. Theres a bunch of good racing games that are good for getting used to the 3D world. Plants vs Zombies is a PERFECT starter game, and to learn the language of games (resources, timers, objectives, interactions, agency, narrative, cinematics, levels, expectations, PVZ does a lot we have forgotten about).
Again, what you consider non-challenging as a gamer is the thrill of skill mastery and a huge challenge for the un-initiated.
We really need to do better because this should be the place people can come and ask this stuff, and they shouldn't be piled on by people screaming go play portal because its very enjoyable to practiced games that can read the language of the game, that can navigate 3D environments without thought, that forgot that managing two joysticks at the same time is actually quite an impressive hand eye skill, and not being called out on this.
So please, if you see it, deploy the downvotes and correct your fellow gamers, and remind them they sit on a throne of skills they have long since forgotten about.
