Games

When covid had everyone working from home and avoiding social contact, I started my gaming journey with Firewatch and The Long Dark, and Factorio. All are excellent. Alien Isolation and The Forest came later.

Minecraft, stardew, factorio or satisfactory are good ideas. Fortnite's lego mode. Dragonquest Builders 2.

For stuck inside though and I've been there nothing beats those big open world games. Maybe Cyberpunk or BG3 or Yazuka or Fallout or Elder Scrolls are my personal faves but anything where you get to be the boss of the world like those are so fun when you can't roam or socialize much.

btw there's a big Stardew update planned for this year, might be worth waiting before starting a new game

Mine loves Cook Serve Delicious and Stardew Valley. Also Starbound and Terraria.

Terraria!! Easy to understand mechanics, building, controller support or mouse and keyboard and can be run on anything

Fall guys has been great and getting anybody at least slightly interested in playing

Visual novels are an option.

Phogs

Turned based on pausable stuff can reduce stress by allowing for thoughtfulness, and even single player games can be done together through strategizing, while also not requiring the 2nd person if they aren't available. To that end, I'm going to recommend Slay the Spire, Dicey Dungeons or Broken Age. Then probably some kind of tactical game, Darkest Dungeon, Loop Hero or Shadowrun. After that, maybe some kind of management game, Cities: Skylines, SimCity, Stardew Valley, Humankind or Against the Storm. If you want to go deeper, Crusader Kings, Dyson Sphere Program or Wartales.

Real-time games that require using multiple sticks/buttons/aiming+moving at once are inherently more difficult to start without the muscle memory, so I'd look to build that up with games that have simpler controls starting with Vampire Survivors or Brotato. Then I'd probably do some kind of non-shooter first or third person game, thinking of Escape Academy, Firewatch or Superliminal, Amnesia (maybe). Then a combat first/third person game Assassin's Creed, Battlefield (Campaign), Mass Effect. Then maybe something that's got combat plus extra stuff, Atomic Heart, Deep Rock Galactic, Dead Space (maybe), Doom, Prey, Wo Long, Remnant. After that is really PvP stuff.

If you just want more readably accessible stuff, A Short Hike, Disneyland Adventures, Peggle, Plants vs Zombies, Bejeweled, The Walking Dead from Telltale (maybe).

I also pulled every game on this list off of Xbox Game Pass, so that might be a good way to try a bunch of different games for cheaper.

Wilmot's Warehouse!

It's an organizing game & you're a little guy! (:

I'm in a similar situation with my partner; she does game, but only shitty repetitive predatory mobile puzzle games. I got her Stardew to try and she absolutely hated it. I have, however, had some limited success with puzzle RPGs like Ticket to Earth.

Me and my wife love playing a game called "Out of Space" it's essentially a procedurally generated clean the house game. It has Overcooked vibes but it's a lot more chill.

Factorio might be a bit heavy for someone who hasn't played anything, but the peaceful mode might be interesting for just building. Also depending on what else she likes Cities Skylines, Rimworld, Stellaris or Parkitect are all very management focused.

If you give us more info on what she likes we might be able to give better suggestions.

Return to Grace! It's a short AWESOME sci-fi adventure in FPS perspective but no fights, no hard puzzles, the controls are very well explained and quite basic.

Stray is an awesome game that’s easy to learn, fun, and really beautiful. Makes for a great starter game

Rimworld. It's like the sims, but with war crimes.

i played civ 6 with a non-gamer partner and it was pretty fun

If you think she might like a 3D platformer that's also one of the best ever licensed property videogames, give SpongeBob Battle for Bikini Bottom a try. The original was the first videogame I think I ever finished, and I thought the remastered version from a few years ago is very well made.

Also this game is how I got my girlfriend to start playing videogames

LocoRoco

It's the only game I've got my wife to play that she enjoyed. It's cute with simple controls. But there's enough there to keep her entertained for awhile.

Hummm easy games. I think it depends of their tastes and what they like to do.

I can think of a few games which might be fun, but perhaps she should watch some lets plays to see if it peaks her interest.

Lil Guardsman is a fun game my SO showed me recently.

Stardew Vally

Potion/crafting games are something else, Potionomics might be fun.

Oh point and clicks might be fun too, but I can think of anything outside of Grim Fandango or Monkey Island

Animal Crossing is always relaxing

My SO and I played Persona 5 together too, I played the game while she was my navigatior who made conversation choices.

Haven. You can play alone or with 2 people, it's very relaxing and I don't know any other game like it. It has a story and 2 endings.

It Takes Two is a 2 player game where you really have to attune to each other, though it's not really difficult. It's a good fun game to play together.

We were here series. Coop puzzle game

Any of the overcooked style games like tools up.

Maybe some raft coop.

Take a look at Apico pixel game all about beekeeping (is more akin to Stardew in how much the is to do however). Fantastic game

Maybe Timberborn once she's slightly more familiar with keyboard controls? It's a cute city builder type game with beavers and the big thing with that is building dams and redirecting water, but it's still in early release and I don't think it does an amazing job of explaining its mechanics, but at the moment it still has a fairly straightforward resource management and supply chain mechanic.

Xonotic, minecraft

Maybe she would like to learn programming or Linux stuff?

Escape from Tarkov