Gateway games

Games
1

I’d like to create a reference thread for gateway games that might allow someone to appreciate a difficult genre. If someone complains about being unable to break into a genre or can’t understand why others enjoy it, we can refer back to this thread.

Guidelines:

  1. Try to keep the gateway concept in mind. Don’t just list the best games in each genre. Some of them might have an appreciation curve.
  2. Don’t list the decades-old foundations of your favorite genre, either. Put yourself in the shoes of someone looking for a modern starting point.
  3. Concentrate on genres you thought you’d never enjoy and finally did, thanks to the gateway game. Personal experience is best.
  4. Please bold the genre so people can skim through the debates later on.
  5. You should probably narrow down into subgenres. Trying to find a gateway strategy game is a bit silly.

Debates are welcome!

Singleplayer wargames: Unity of Command. I’ve already explained why in greater detail. I’m still amazed how this game combines accessibility with all the trappings of the genre.

Multiplayer wargames: Battle of the Bulge (iOS). It reminded me a lot of chess, with strategic and tactical considerations to puzzle over on every move. At some point it might dawn on you that you’re playing a wargame against a real human being! Just don’t waste much time on the AI.

Shoot 'em ups: Jamestown. Now that I’ve played more shooters, I feel even more confident about this one than I already did. It looks slick and it still uses some of the classic genre mechanics. It has a good metagame that will drive you to practice, which differentiates it from the rest of the genre I’ve seen so far. The learning curve is gentle thanks to all the difficulty levels.

Flight sims: Rise of Flight. Although I love race sims, I didn’t think I’d ever get past the boring missions, dry gameplay, and steep learning curve in flight sims. WWI is the best place to start because everything happens slowly and obviously. It provides a great sensation of flying. The UI is pretty good too. Plus the entire game is free to download and play. You only get two flyable planes, but they are excellent. Grab a cheap HOTAS and go.

Euro boardgames: Agricola (iOS). I believe my introduction was Le Havre. Agricola is similar with a little more theme to keep you going.

Fighting games: Skullgirls. I say this tentatively because I haven’t followed up on it yet. The in-game tutorial is superb. You’ll learn a lot more by doing than by watching instructional YouTube videos. The AI is useless, so you still need to jump online or get some friends to play against.

Less clear
Beat 'em ups: One Finger Death Punch is blissfully simple, but it doesn’t relate much to most games in the genre. The 3D console games have a lot of unwelcome cruft, such as cutscenes and QTEs. You have to poke around.

Action RPG: I finally understood this genre after playing Torchlight 2, but I have no idea why. I haven’t played any other action RPGs since then.

Race sims: There is a new generation coming out very soon. Standby on this one.

2

I like this idea!

Would that include board games?

I think it would be wise to list the different genres? I am not certain how many there are, that would be an interesting discussion in itself .

Off the top of my head, TBS, RTS, FPS, RPG, Strategy, Tactical. Wargames, Card, Action, Adventure, MOBA, Sim, Fighting, Racing, Puzzle, and then the different categories for each of the main ones? Besides the various combinations. Or it could be Space, Fantasy, World War, Business, Rogue-like etc. I think this could be hard just deciding on what is a genre. ;)

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I left the genres open so people can come up with distinctions they think are important. I’m not sure we’ll get very far with broad popular genres like FPS, TBS, RPG, etc. Subgenres are probably better.

Boardgames are welcome too of course. You’ll need to make a strong case if you think the best gateway is anything but an iOS port! (Social games excluded, of course.) iOS certainly worked for me. It beats my awkward game of 7 Wonders and various social card games.

4

Pinball games Pinball FX2: I didn’t even know this was a thing until the recent sale. I hadn’t played a pinball game since a bowling alley in the early 80’s and had no idea I would like them so much. Completely polished and addictive - especially if you have fellow QT3 members to compare scores with.

5

Hmmmm…

I have to say that the best board game gateway games I have had success with:

Ticket to Ride
Resistance
Lords of Waterdeep
Trains
Legendary (Marvel)

I am talking about just getting someone into board gaming (real card board).

Trains would be for deck building and I think it is easier to explain than dominion; since it involves trains and a board (Dominion maybe better but harder to explain the concept - but everyone understand trains and station etc).

Lords of Waterdeep for worker placement (I find the theme is fine for nongamer types)
Legendary for cooperative plus deck building
Ticket to Ride for people who have only ever played Monopoly
Resistance is an easy game to teach and by far gets the best positive reaction from nongamers (I think because it is so different).

Legendary for Cooperative

I would like to hear what is the best wargame gateway?

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RPG - [B]Fallout 3[\B]
TBS - [B]Civ 5[\B]

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RPG - Fallout 3
TBS - Civ 5

8

I would pick Civ 4 over Civ 5 because I think the tactical adds a little more complexity when considering a gateway. Though I could see MOO also being in the running.

Even Advanced War would be a good choice especially kids as TBS?

9

I agree with not needing to get too prescriptive in terms of genre.

Shmups: I’ll second the recommendation of Jamestown. Great presentation, and it does a wonderful job easing the player into progressively more complex and challenging situations. I especially like the way that each level/difficulty combination is its own self-contained thing with its own score and stock of lives, making progress very attainable compared to games that have to be done all in one go, or relegate anything else to a hamstrung “practice” mode.

Traditional Roguelikes: Shiren the Wanderer (DS). The interface and presentation are much better than the genre’s PC staples, removing those barriers to entry, but the core gameplay is plenty complex, sharply balanced, and full of difficult decisions, avoiding the pitfalls of many other Japanese roguelikes or recent indie light roguelikes, which sacrifice too much of the genre’s teeth and unique appeal in the name of accessibility.

Brawler: DmC: Devil May Cry. As with my other recommendations, this layers on the new elements in a manageable way, but retains enough complexity to let the player stretch their wings and really engage with the systems.

CCG: Hearthstone. Again, excellent presentation, and mechanics that are streamlined without completely sacrificing the meat of the genre.

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Stealth Games - Manhunt

No, really, that’s what got me into stealth games. Previously I’d mostly experienced stealth gameplay in the context of games that either weren’t designed around it but felt the need to drop a broken, frustrating segment of it in anyway (e.g. Return to Castle Wolfenstein), or games where you had to memorize patrol routes and avoid everyone on your way by. I suppose the latter is okay, if really well done, but it’s not really my style. Manhunt provides a fairly mechanically simple approach to stealth that emphasizes eliminating enemies rather than slipping past them but has an excellent risk/reward component to it and enough player tools and recoverability that it’s not about rote memorization or immediately quickloading from every stealth failure. It’s also got a fairly unique grimy, horrible ambience and is incredibly tense at its best moments. I never finished it because once it introduces guns it also tries to be a shooter and that was not so much something it handled well, but it was an excellent springboard to more widely acclaimed franchises like Thief and Splinter Cell. I’ve long been curious to know if Manhunt 2 was, despite its reputation, equally solid, but despite owning it I’ve yet to get around to actually playing it for more than a level or so. (That level seemed promising enough, granted.)

11

+1 for this, and +1 for Jamestown as well, which happens to be my favourite shooter for all the reasons its a great gateway game.

2D platformer: Rayman: Origins. It’s got an amazingly organic difficulty/learning curve that Legends all but abandoned. In Origins every repeated attempt at a level (to collect those pesky lums and electoons) goes towards mastering it for the eventual speed run. You don’t have to do this but if you’re trying to collect all the electoons then the game very cleverly builds up and enables the player to do so without slamming them into a brick wall of difficulty, and of course as the player gets better the platforming gets trickier and more demanding. It’s a masterclass in charming and accessible but ultimately empowering and tricky platforming. It’s co-op too which works wonderfully and makes the game even more accessible. I played it with my girlfriend and we had a blast. Oh and the visuals and music are incredible too.

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I have to disagree about Jamestown; it’s an awful gateway shmup, in the sense that it’s not a good game in the first place. 16:9 for a vertical-scrolling game is a huge no-no for the genre, the vaunt system is an inferior version of the shield from Giga Wing (which came out over a decade earlier), and you have to unlock the ability to play it like a traditional shmup, which is completely nuts; it’s like if a fighting game made you play a bunch of single-player stuff to unlock multiplayer.

Disregarding all of that, though, while its one-level-at-a-time design may be appealing to newcomers, this is actually a bad thing from the standpoint of “getting into other games of the same genre after playing this one,” as no other shmup does this; I have the same issue with the Shiren the Wanderer suggestion for Roguelikes, as while I do like the various Mysterious Dungeon games, they lack permadeath, a defining feature of the genre. There are better methods of making genres accessible to newcomers than simply adding training wheels; streamlined move inputs and comprehensive tutorials that start from the most basic concepts of the genre do a lot more to make Skullgirls an accessible fighting game than the “simple” input schemes that made every button do something flashy did for BlazBlue and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

The worst part: I don’t really have a better suggestion for a gateway shmup. Anything I could suggest is import-only, is a Cave port on iOS (which would be even worse for “getting into traditional shmups” than Jamestown), or wouldn’t do a good job of getting someone who otherwise wouldn’t like shmups to start liking them; it’s not a good genre to try to get into if you aren’t already into arcade culture and/or if you don’t want to play some of the most difficult games in existence. The best suggestions I could give are x.x’s freeware shmups and Space Invaders Extreme 2 (DS), but while I do think someone who isn’t normally into shmups could get into those games, I also think we can do better for a “gateway shmup.”

I do, however, have a better suggestion for a gateway Roguelike: DoomRL. It still features permadeath, but it’s not packed with obscure “hope you have a guide handy!” mechanics like other popular Roguelikes, and DoomRL does distinct things that make it worth playing even if you’re already into Roguelikes. For the accessibility angle, it features difficulty settings (though you’ll still die if you try to rush in blindly on any difficulty), explicitly-defined classes and skills to better allow you to build exactly the kind of character you want to play, no hunger system, and numerous unlockable challenge modes to keep you coming back even after you conquer Hell.

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MOBA: Smite. Direct controls, 3rd person camera and some auxiliary functions like optional autobul and autolevel will ease the entry in the genre, while retaining all the strategy of lanes, goals, and teamwork.

Roguelike: I loved Dungeons of Dredmor. Funny, nice graphics, decent controls, option to save between floors, and the combination of skills will ignite your imagination.

Schmup: I don’t know, I think the old Tyrion is still a better entry game!

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Dungeons of Dredmor completely slipped my mind but is also a really good entry-level Roguelike. DoomRL does have the advantage of being free, which I’d say is better for getting someone to try a thing; on the other hand, Dungeons of Dredmor always gets mega-discounts during Steam sales and the like, so everyone already has it anyway.

Tyrian is rather dated, and suffers from many of the problems commonly associated with “Euroshmups,” including ammo and shield systems, popcorn enemies that take too many hits to kill, and overly-long stages. (These are also why I wouldn’t recommend Raptor: Call of the Shadows to anyone wanting an actual good shmup to play.)

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Man I also liked Raptor! I prefer casual euroshmups :)

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+1 for Dungeons of Dredmor.

I enjoyed Tyrian many moons ago but not sure it stacks up to Jamestown in the gateway department. Jamestown doesn’t veer over too much into Euroshmupsville either. Tyrian was a blast back to the Xenon 2 and X-Out days for me, what with the shop and all. I used to love all that stuff. I think it’s important with a gateway game not to push anyone down a particular path though. I know Euroshmups are sneered at in more hardcore shoot 'em up circles but I don’t think newcomers should be ushered away from them as they’re an important part of the landscape. I think in that regard Jamestown hits a sweet spot somewhere between the two.

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It’s hopeless! You must submit!

The tough thing about being a genre expert is it’s difficult to put yourself in the shoes of someone just starting out. You get stuck on minor things. For example, 16:9 was completely irrelevant and easy to transition from. The origin and superiority of other scoring systems isn’t important either. I think there is a mode to play all the levels in a row (once you work up to it) so that’s fine. What it does give you more than any other shooter I’ve encountered so far is a reason to care. I think it’s the metagame that drove me forward originally. I saw enough to make me curious. As I wrote back in the Jamestown thread:

I will grant you that there is still a bit of a jump to go from Jamestown to traditional shooters. You’ll need a secondary gateway game. (I’ve been working on that recently, and I was going to make another thread for this genre a little later.) Skullgirls actually has a similar problem: it’s a nice gateway, but you’ll need to play regularly online or against friends to really lock in your appreciation.

Anyway, I think getting a foot in the door is the most important thing. I want people to at least poke their heads in and decide whether they want to pursue it further or write off the genre.

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I hit a wall of difficulty in Jamestown 25 minutes in, that’s why I’m not sure it’s an ideal “gateway” game. Of course it could be argued that super high difficulty it’s a requirement of those games…

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I would say the DC deck builder over Legendary because it has just one resource instead of two for deck building games. I have played legendary with a couple new people and it didn’t click for them. There is also LotR themed version of the DC game.

Magical Athlete is a great intro board-game also.

Wargame? Memoir '44, though it is mroe board game than wargame.

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There’s a phenomenal card game called Mascarade (sic.) that introduces new players to social game mechanics like lying and bluffing really well. It’s also super effective in that (unlike a lot of games) it’s tricky for seasoned players to take an advantage over new ones - Mascarade hates all of its players equally, while simultaneously being really simple to grasp.

Another favourite is Skull and Roses, which feels a bit like the designer looked at Poker and said “let’s strip out everything except the most exciting moment”, which is (of course) the reveal of the cards. Players bet that they can turn over increasingly large numbers of Rose cards without encountering a Skull, and… that’s it? It’s just so mechanically simple but allows for so much individual play and deception and discovery.