Sennaar didn't gel with me, because language-based deduction imply an "arbitrariness" ("wobbliness"?) and mis-interpretations. To me, this felt frustrating compared to the sharpness of an Obra Dinn deduction. But for others it might be part of the appeal, and at any rate it's undeniably a polished game, so I understand that a lot people enjoy it :)
Regarding other similar recommendations I see in-thread and that are not already in the list:
- The Outer Wilds: one of my fav games ever (it's at the top of my "absolute best" list), but too 3d-mechanically-demanding for a very-non-gamer.
- The Witness: same, thus for this "non-gamers" list I preferred recommending its excellent 2D little-brother, Taiji :)
- Case of the Golden Idol: yeah it's a clear "play that too if you liked Obra Dinn", added as Obra Dinn addendum
- Lorelei and the Laser eyes: haven't played it yet, will soon!
Lorelei and the Laser eyes was one of my favorite games that I played this past year. I think it might be good for a non-gamer, but they had better absolutely love puzzles. Also some of the puzzles require playing videogames within the main game and I can't remember exactly, but they may not make much sense or be very fun if you don't have experience with like PS1 era horror games.
For The Witness, I would recommend tagging it as appropriately not accessible. There is a section that can't be completed at all without hearing, and large chunks of the game that I can't imagine are possible with color blindness. I don't have either of these issues, but running into those things really rubbed me the wrong way. It is a game that seems to value the creators vision above all else and isn't willing to make any sacrifices for the audience.
Edit: I realize I misread and thought you were saying you were going to add The Witness to the non-gamer list, which was why I was saying that a disclaimer would be extra useful. Left it anyway.
> For The Witness, I would recommend tagging it as appropriately not accessible. There is a section that can't be completed at all without hearing, and large chunks of the game that I can't imagine are possible with color blindness. I don't have either of these issues, but running into those things really rubbed me the wrong way. It is a game that seems to value the creators vision above all else and isn't willing to make any sacrifices for the audience.
For sure, "uncompromising" or "design-opinionated" are adjectives that fit Jonathan Blow (lead designer & programmer of The Witness) and I doubt he'd object :D.
He was asked about these inaccessible puzzles, and from what I remember, his answer was pretty much what you intuited: that he was aware, but unwilling to compromise, in a "not every art if for everyone and that's fine" kind of way. And announcing them or having { I am color-blind, I am deaf } accessibility options to adapt could/would have spoiled the surprise, so he went ahead with them.
Is it too insensitive / dickish? Maybe, I wouldn't know as I know little of how a vision or hearing-impaired person would feel in front of that. Hey, I'm going to ask a blind friend how he perceives such an attitude: is it "Yeah it sucks", or is it "Whatever, the game isn't actively making fun of disabled people, there's just two sections needing access to certain senses where I'll ask for help, I'm used to it and that's okay"? Curious to see his take.
I still like The Witness for what it is. Maybe I will change my mind someday and will flag my recommendation with an inaccessibility warning, but for now it's in my "absolute best" sub-list without caveat.
> Lorelei and the Laser eyes was one of my favorite games that I played this past year. I think it might be good for a non-gamer, but they had better absolutely love puzzles.
Cool, will try it soon! It's already purchased, I'm just waiting for patches to ship (I'm a "patient gamer": I have my dose of coping with bugs from $JOB, so when it comes to games I choose to never play games day/week/month 1, to let them stabilize). If good, might add it to my "best puzzle games" sublist, https://ronan.jouchet.fr/games?list=puzzle
I used to follow the development blogs of the witness. I remember reading somewhere that accessibility was why you can beat the game with only 7/10 sections complete. You can completely skip both the colour puzzles and sound puzzles and still finish the game. Its an interesting compromise.
As someone who is colorblind, you are correct. Those puzzles are just about impossible for me.
> Sennaar didn't gel with me, because language-based deduction imply an "arbitrariness" ("wobbliness"?) and mis-interpretations
After not too far in, you eventually start confirming the meanings of words. Eventually you confirm the meaning of every word of every language. So, while learning a language can be a challenge of interpretation, eventually you do get concrete meanings.
Edit: I'd also recommend The Sexy Brutale for your list, it's a time loop detective game.
> Sennaar didn't gel with me, because language-based deduction imply an "arbitrariness" ("wobbliness"?) and mis-interpretations.
I definitely found the misinterpretations entertaining. It seems like they went to some amount of effort to anticipate potential misinterpretations, such that discovering those misinterpretations later would lead to amusement.
Thanks for the recs, some I've never heard, but Outer Wilds is in my all time Top 3 games ever made. Have you played the DLC? Just as amazing, but of course go in blind :)
My favourite thing about the DLC (which I have yet to finish) is how well it integrates into the main game. It's "just there", and you can go play it if you look specifically for it, or leave it.
> Outer Wilds is in my all time Top 3 games ever made
Hey, same, it's at spot #3 of my "absolute best" list, https://ronan.jouchet.fr/games#outerwilds . The list I was sharing my "for non-gamers" list, and I stand by the fact that Outer Wilds has non-negligible chances to be a bad experience for very-non-gamers. I know it because I've seen it:
1. The very-non-gamer has zero chance of being able to navigate a 3d space before many hours of manipulating a twin-stick gamepad or kb+mouse ...
2. ... And some of them even get nausea from the 6-axis degrees of freedom spacecraft navigation needed by games like Outer Wilds or Descent!
Thx :) . I found out about Slipways via Jonathan Blow (maker of The Witness), who was obsessed about it for a while and played it a lot on stream. I like that kind of smaller games you can summarize with "<genre>, distilled", as they often let me enjoy a <genre> I normally don't like.
Happened with Slipways (4X, distilled), but also with Into The Breach (Turn-by-turn combat, distilled), Islanders (Civilization, distilled), or Thronefall (Real-Time Strategy, distilled).
Sennaar didn't gel with me, because language-based deduction imply an "arbitrariness" ("wobbliness"?) and mis-interpretations. To me, this felt frustrating compared to the sharpness of an Obra Dinn deduction. But for others it might be part of the appeal, and at any rate it's undeniably a polished game, so I understand that a lot people enjoy it :)
Regarding other similar recommendations I see in-thread and that are not already in the list:
- The Outer Wilds: one of my fav games ever (it's at the top of my "absolute best" list), but too 3d-mechanically-demanding for a very-non-gamer.
- The Witness: same, thus for this "non-gamers" list I preferred recommending its excellent 2D little-brother, Taiji :)
- Case of the Golden Idol: yeah it's a clear "play that too if you liked Obra Dinn", added as Obra Dinn addendum
- Lorelei and the Laser eyes: haven't played it yet, will soon!