Recommendations to persuade a non-gamer
 

I would like to involve my husband, Colin, in adventure gaming. I think it would be an enjoyable hobby for him, as well as a little brain exercise and a palatable introduction to computers. The problem is that I might persuade him to try gaming once -- if only as a favour to me -- but if he finds it too difficult or doesn't enjoy himself, he will never try again.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/16/90...642dc9af68.jpg

He's intelligent and has a good sense of humour but little patience. He would certainly be turned off by illogical puzzles, trial-and-error, or pixel hunting. He's got no interest in swords-and-sorcery stuff. His favourite books and TV shows tend to be thrillers and law shows (cops or courtroom). He enjoys crosswords and is good with anagrams and numbers, but is not a game or puzzle hobbyist.

He is something of a technophobe with essentially no computer experience, so the game has to be easy to run and intuitive to play, with no complex commands or confusing dialogues (save/load, etc.). It doesn't need to be state of the art, but should be reasonably attractive and visually clear.

He has had a stroke and has limited dexterity in the one hand he can use. The ideal environment would be 2-D point-and-click in which unlimited time is allowed for every move. Definitely NO arcade or timed challenges, and preferably no typing (hunting-and-pecking the occasional word or two would be OK). It would also be preferable to have large targets to click on rather than having to home in on very small hotspots. He would also find it very difficult to make written notes or maps as he plays.

He is also extremely hard of hearing; you might as well consider him deaf for gaming purposes. Therefore all speech must be subtitled, and no challenges should involve music or sound cues. Background music should be turn-off-able; he enjoys music but is picky about what he likes.

So it's a bit of a challenge to think of a game that he'll be able to play easily and enjoy right off the bat.

My immediate impulse was Physicus. This is not too long, not too difficult, completely logical, and (as far as I remember) doesn't involve sound cues or dexterity challenges.

But then I thought about Monkey Island. This is longer but livelier, funny, still quite logical, and not especially difficult. Although there's a lot of character interaction, it's all done through point-and-click text. And (as far as I remember) there are no sound cues or dexterity challenges.

Perhaps I'll describe the two games and let him choose which one appeals. But before I do, are there other games I should be considering?

I got into adventure games because my wife and I wanted to play games together and the unrushed-ness of most adventures meant that we could discuss what to do next and play cooperatively. I think we first played Broken Sword 2 together.

I've got the Broken Sword series and had a very brief bash at BS1, but haven't really played any of them (though I'm looking forward to it some time). Do you think it might suit?

I suspect we wouldn't be playing together, but I might be called on to help him through the first time or two.

I think that Broken Sword 1 would suit him greatly! (But maybe I’m biased).
The game has a straightforward point & click interface, the speech is subtitled throughout, and I consider the puzzles to be more logical than that of the Monkey Island series.

P.S. Can I have some of what your husband is eating?

It has a couple of (short) timed sequences, though.

Yeah I see what you mean, I found the timing on the cliff, goat and train parts particularly difficult, but I always got somebody with a quicker reaction time to help me out. :D

Broken Sword's good in that it's amusing and serious in equal measure. Still Life might be a good choice, it being a thriller, although the ending may send him into a rage that no amount of berries and cream could subdue.

I think he'll like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
It has good humor and its all about investigating and law suits
But its on Nintendo DS, so that might be a problem...
No need for fast responses, etc.
I used this game before to a friend to introduce him to adventuregaming, and he loved it.

I also used Grim Fandango a lot with other friends who never played adventures before, but the difficulty of walking to some point (at least for somebody who never plays games at all) will prolly annoy him after a while


Hope you'll succeed on ur mission and convert him :)
He'll love it, in the end!

What first came to mind when reading your querie was The Black Mirror or The Moment of Silence but they are third person games which have a tendency to have a lot of dialogue (not all). Since your husband is hard of hearing would he be turned off or lose interest with all the reading? First person games might be the way to go as quite a few (not all) are geared more to exploration and discovery than dialogue.

I will give it more thought for a first person game. Good luck in your quest as we all have THAT game that turned us into adventure lovers.

If he likes Crime/detective stuff, what about the Law & Order or CSI games? I think those have subtitles (someone will need to confirm) and I think they have a pretty easy interface.

You can demo CSI 3 Dimensions of Murder as well.

As long as it isn't CSI 2. If you prescribed that to him, he'd write off AGing forever. :P

That's what I was going to suggest as well, particularly CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder and the upcoming CSI: Hard Evidence. (the latter of which I worked on, yay!) And yes, they do indeed have subtitles.

Yeah, if I had that in front of me, I might not be interested in playing video games either.

Davies, in the entire history of PC games, there is one game that turned more non-gamers into gamers than any other (and it just happens to be an adventure game): Myst. If you only get one shot with your husband, go with the top performer.

I guess you didn't read the bit about the non-sound-based puzzles :P

Oops! Oh yeah. I forgot. The first time I tried to play Myst, I used a computer with no sound and got stuck pretty early on. Sorry about that. Maybe go with Myst IV then. I don't remember sound puzzles in that one.

I think whatever game you choose you have to know all the puzzles so he can come to you for help. i think. Maybe you and him can play through a game you already know. Anyway i dont know anything just trying to be helpful :)

oh and hi im new here, been lurking for some time though :)

I tried that with my boyfriend when first introducing him to adventure-gaming and he got the poops with me because I wouldn't tell him what to do the first moment he'd get stuck. LOL!

While I do agree that it would be a good introduction to the genre, I must admit I had my frustrations with that game .. :D All respect to the series though, I got myself the 1-5 collection, and have yet to play them all. They have a great story, great puzzles and awesome worlds (known as Ages in the games) awaiting your exploration!

So get to it, adventurer! ;)