If you like puzzle games I suggest trying portal. Portal 1 is inexpensive on Steam and playable on any modern PC including on Linux. It’s low pressure, has some humor, not very violent, and you can restart from anywhere you like.

If you are considering a hobby for your general well being and long term happiness, video games probably aren’t your best bet. Learning a new language, a nusical instrument, a sport, an art or craft, meditation, etc.; could be much more fulfilling for your life. It is easy to invest too much time on video games without getting a considerable reward in terms of long term happiness.

A lot of women I know who aren’t the typical “gamer” type really enjoy Stardew Valley. It’s a little farming game where you live in a town, foster relationships with the townspeople, and generally go about small town life. Very cute game, especially fun with friends.

Also Minecraft, it’s very open ended and there are many ways to play it.

As for how to start, an affordable laptop will run both of these fairly well, if you want Nintendo games you’ll probably have to get a Nintendo Switch.

Definitely make a Steam account though, you’ll find pretty much all the games you could want in one place there (Minecraft is separate).

This game recommendation thingy might be helpful: https://apps.quanticfoundry.com/surveys/start/gamerprofile/

In the profile you choose what you are looking for in a gaming experience - it doesn’t matter if you don’t know yet or need to make up some answers. There are questions like “How important is working towards a common goal with other players?”

It’s a place to start anyway.

I will say, as a 30 year old man I had the urge to start playing games because they just looked so good these days. I played a little here and there growing up, but all of my friends were gamers and I just wasn’t interested. When I got interested, I found a lot of fun and joy in it.

I’m still not your typical gamer. I find a few games I really love and I keep playing them over and over—great campaigns with great story telling and great characters and great graphics are so much of it. Since I started playing video games in like 2020, I’ve basically played four games, but two of them I’ve played a bunch of times (red dead redemption II and Cyberpunk).

Now I’m looking at Stalker 2 and I think that might be my next game I want to play to death. Gotta wait to hear how people feel about it though.

I’d say start with some of the most popular games, like Mario and Pokemon. Those are the two biggest video game franchises in the world, they’re very accessible and even decades later still a ton of fun.

edit: FWIW, Nintendo is a problematic video game company and trying to destroy video game preservation of their games (and trying to prevent community-run video game competitions/tournaments of their games), but they still have made some of the best video games of all time.

My wife is a 30+ woman and she loved (among others) OneShot, World of Goo, and Final Fantasy XV.

OneShot is an atmospheric, story-based game with some puzzle elements and a lot of lovable characters. On the flip side, there’s a lot of walking and it’s easy to get lost. Nevertheless, there’s a deep connection you as the player can build with the characters and the world they inhabit.

World of Goo is a physics-based building game, where you build bridges and towers out of cute sentient rubber-like balls, but beneath the solid physics, art and music there lies a deep social commentary too.

Final Fantasy XV is the most mainstream of these, but it is an entry into the FF games specifically designed for newcomers in mind. It follows four main and several supporting characters on a journey that starts as a road trip interspersed with beginner-friendly but still jaw-droppingly well rendered and animated combat and slowly but surely escalated to an epic catharsis.

What sort of experience are you interested in? Something challenging and competitive would have you looking at very different games than something relaxing. I’d probably recommend stardew valley for a first game as it’s widely regarded and cozy but not without challenges

Try out open-source games too, not just the big corporate games. Space Station 14, OpenTTD, Endless Sky, Naev, plenty of choices. Saw someone here rant about how the “videogames industry has become very rotten” and decided I’d point you to a non-rotten part of it.

Get a switch lite, yeah. I highly recommend playing star fox 64, Pokemon stadium, and the older legend of Zelda games. They are very good entry points into gaming and are all available via a Nintendo online membership.

Get a Switch Lite and go from there. If you already have a midrange PC with decent iGPU, download Steam and play an older but highly rated game.

Don’t spend too much before deciding if it is for you. Find the cheapest entry point.

Can I go completely 180 and suggest programming as a hobby? If you want a hobby where you’re in a computer. Then try learning to program little things. If you work on a computer then it’ll make things easier for you in the future, it’ll keep your brain sharp and teaches you problem solving.

I’m a 30-something woman myself. I’ve been gaming longer than I’ve had a phone. Here’s my two cents:

You’re already into videogames. Fuck what the haters say about mobile gaming not being “”“true”“” gaming (whatever the heck that means), they’re just sour they can’t game whenever wherever without investing a ton of time. Then again, maybe I’m just mad because I’ve recently invested a ton of time into Youtube’s playables.

If you want to get into PC or console gaming, I recommend starting off with popular E rated games in the genres you already know you like. Generally these games are more complex than mobile games, but this type will usually introduce difficulty curves to gradually transition you into their mechanics and complexity and teach you to be a master without having to look up training online.

If you want to branch out, start with genre-bending/-blending games. I’m personally a fan of puzzle-platformers, as those are my two favorite genres; while I’m not big on card games, they recently had an explosion in popularity, so there’s a blend of just about every genre you could want.

What gaming is like for a non-gamer

This guy had his non-gaming wife try different games, very enlightening for your purposes

You are already a gamer!

I’m a 36 year old woman who grew up playing them with my dad. My sister is a year younger than me get than me. She grew out of it a bit but she still plays “cozy”, low to no pressure games. I like long role playing games with interesting stories.

If you want any recommendations or a new friend to play with, I’m here! I also know of several gaming groups for women.

I’d like to know more about what you’re interested to give better suggestions but here are a few that might pique your interest.

Balatro is a recently popular card game. You can play it on your phone or on a computer. It works sort of like poker, but you apply effects to the cards to multiply your score.

A Little To The Left is a puzzle game. You play the owner of a mischievous cat and your goal is to reorganize the messes that your cat made throughout the house, like sorting the mail, organizing a battery draw, displaying sea shells you collected etc

Unpacking is also a puzzle game. You literally unpack boxes in various rooms. Sometimes it’s hard to make everything fit. As you progress through each level, you learn about the main character’s life.

If you want something more traditional, Ori and the Blind Forest is absolutely beautiful. In that, you play as a small guardian spirit and you navigate through a forest solving puzzles, collecting items, and jumping between platforms (sorta like Mario).