Any “cozy” game. Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, others like those.
One that I personally really like, that sort of blends different aspects of AC and SV, is Paleo Pines. You have a ranch that you little by little clear out, fix up, and decorate; all with the help of adorable dinosaur friends. There’s actually a surprising number of species and map space in the game, and the vibe and aesthetic are ridiculously cute. I will say it’s slightly more laid back than SV as there are no real timers for the different quests and such, and there are fewer characters to keep track of/befriend.
There are plenty of other CRPGs (good search term) that are fine with a mouse/keyboard. Larian kind of stands alone in terms of how well they handle with a controller though. Divinity Original Sin 2 is still dark, but not as in your face about it.
Other terms that have similar battles (but generally more closed maps) are tactical RPGs, strategy RPGs, turn based tactics or turn based strategy. I can’t break down the lines between any of those sub-genres, but they’re all kind of in the neighborhood. A lot of them are also dark, though.
Phogs is a game where you a control a dog-dog (Remember Cat-Dog from Nickelodeon? That, but double dog) through a series of themed worlds solving puzzles. The themes are things puppies are interested in (eating, sleeping, and playing). The game is meant to be played co-op, but I believe it can be played alone.
Satisfactory. Lots to organize and build. A bit of a learning curve if you want to get complex, but if you want to keep things simple it’s really doable.
No Man’s Sky. Space exploration, building, and all round reason to goof about for hours. (Free to play this weekend on all platforms.)
If you’re a fan of 80s-90s action movies check out “broforce”. There are some multiplayer "single stick shooters"out there that are quite fun, vampire survivors comes to mind. Don’t starve together is a great multiplayer experience. Others have said stardew valley, and I agree with them, if single player is desired check out animal crossing. Satisfactory is the 3-D version of factorio, with fewer resources constraints and less enemy aggression, Dyson sphere program is factorio tuned the opposite way. Rimworld and dwarf fortress are both highly recommended "run your own city, but in a passive manner"games
Let’s say the PC doesn’t count and you aren’t taking into account backwards compatibility, emulation, online play, homebrew games, and the cost/availability of games.
Fair enough. I’d probably just go for the Xbox One in that case and deal with a few games still being moddable and supporting the keyboard and mouse as peripherals rather than give up on gaming
House flipper, The Sims, Planet Zoo/Planet coaster, Two Point Hospital/Campus, or anything in the creative management genre. Stardew Valley is good, and in the same vein, Graveyard Keeper.
Ok I actually haven’t played BG3 yet lol, but I’m gonna suggest Freedom Force. It’s a superhero RPG with some cool character building. The game is on Steam and GOG but I see some people saying the GOG version works better out of the box for modern Windows.
It doesn’t have dialog trees though just combat. But it’s not violent, you said you didn’t like the violence. And it takes very little storage space.
It’s funny how people overestimate what a person that never gamed can do. OP, Factorio is constant precise clicking with an unintuitive UI if you haven’t played any games. So is Satisfactory and similar others.
Start with things casual gamers play. There is a reason Sims is so popular. If you want to later (muuuch later) introduce her into the FPS genre - Portal 2. It has very little controls to remember, and very rarely is there any action that needs to require dexterity in aiming. Also, Valve invisible tutorials are awesome for new gamers.
Yeah, I played It Takes Two with my gf last week and she had trouble with the most basic jumps because she couldn’t use the keyboard and mouse at the same time. It might be easier with the controller, but moving a character and the camera at the same time is surprisingly hard to learn for beginners.
The best recommendations here are the games with extremely simple controls. I think Vampire Survivors was a good pick since you only need to use the keyboard for most of the time. Adventure games was another good recommendation since it should only require the mouse.
Good that she likes organizing, but Factorio is way over the head of any non-gamer. Doubt it would keep her entertained for long. Its only great if you like micromanaging and meticulously playing around with game mechanics. Which usually only happens after being exposed to gaming long enough.
It Takes Two is much better for a beginner since it isn’t a punishing game.
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is an other great couple game.
Yeah, I played It Takes Two with my gf last week and she had trouble with the most basic jumps because she couldn’t use the keyboard and mouse at the same time.
This is probably a stupid question … but it was an actual mouse right? Like we wasn’t using a touchpad?
So many OSes default to the touchpad being disabled while typing and that causes big issues for WASD keyboard and mouse games.
I could probably be happy with playing Bloodborne for the rest of my life if I absolutely had to choose a console. Ps4 also had a fair few decent indie titles release during its lifetime, and it had horizon zero dawn which is fucking breathtaking.
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