Since my move to Florida God has once again abandoned me and denied me finding a job for the millionth time in my life.
This has left Ms. Cups and I without any TV that isn’t Netflix or Hulu, and while these are great and all, we don’t agree much on TV so we are looking for things to do. The good news is that we both love games. Does anyone have any recommendations for 2 player games? These can be card games, board games, video games…anything atall.
And while I have you here, I was thinking of maybe playing Risk with her since it’s a huge game that can take a long time…is that any fun with only two people or will the conquering be just too quick for it to be fun?
Divinity: Original Sin was great as a two-player co-op game. It’s turn-based RPG which isn’t everybody’s cup of tea but if you both like RPGs the co-op experience can be awesome. Other games I’ve enjoyed playing with one friend have been the Borderlands games, the new Skyforge MMO (f2p but not too obnoxious about it) and Diablo 3. Warframe (another f2p game) works very well for two people as well. Most of these do not require any sort of state-of-the-art computer to play either.
I’ve only played by myself but, judging by user reviews, One More Line has promise. Free for Android devices and three bucks on Steam, which reportedly has an exclusive on multiplayer.
My favorite two-player card game is Casino, a trick-taking game (appropriately for that link, I learned it from my grandfather, who was a master at it). Rules were as they described, with three exceptions: We never played it with more than two players, a “sweep” (where you capture all of the cards currently on the table with a single move) was worth a bonus point, and if you were playing for any sort of stakes (Grampap would stake a quarter against a hair-combing), a “skunk” (where one player won all 11 points in a round) counted as an extra win for purposes of the stakes. Oh, and if there are any cards left on the table at the end of the last hand, those go to whomever captured the last trick.
My grandparents used to play that every morning and given they were married for over 60 years that’s a lot of games so that’s one vote for it. They also used the rules that a “sweep” was one point and that the leftover cards went to the last person to capture a trick.
Board games nominally designed for two or more players are a mixed bag – a few off the top of my head that actually work well with two players: Ticket to Ride (various versions), Splendor, Blokus, and Ingenious.
There’s a really great deckbuilding (like Dominon, Ascension, etc) game designed for two players called Star Realms. It was designed by a couple of old Magic pros, and it’s very, very replayable. Several expansions available to keep it fresh.
Unauthorized Cinnamon recently got me into Hearthstone, a strategy card game. It’s really nice in that it’s easy to learn and the games are short, so it’s a great game for filling the odd 10-15 minutes here and there.
I like Battle for Wesnoth, another free game. It’s a fantasy-themed, tactical, turn-based strategy game. You can play single-player campaigns, but there are also cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes.
Orcs Must Die 2 and Sol Survivor are both lovely tower defense games which can be played with two people.
I’ll add another vote for Ticket To Ride.
Trine 2 is lovely, but I’m terrible at platformers so I can’t really do it justice.
It’s as least as much puzzle game as it is platformer, and it’s one of those games where every puzzle has a quick-finger way to solve it and a clever way. The main fault with it is it’s just too short.
My favorite two-handed card games are Cribbage and …
Casino. My son and I play with rules similar to Chronos’ but with these additions:
[ul][li] Jack, Queen, King instead of being unbuildable are normal arithmetic cards with values 11, 12, 13 respectively.[/li][li] Ace can count as either 1 or 14[/li][li] Little Casino can count as either 2 or 15[/li][li] Big Casino can count as either 10 or 16[/li][li] Any Trey can count as either 3 or 30.[/li][/ul]
The first four rules above are a standard variation (though only the first is mentioned on Wikipedia’s page). The rule about Treys is my son’s and my invention.
Other good two-handed games include Backgammon and word games like Jotto (related to Mastermind but secrets and guesses all have to be 5-letter dictionary words) and Boxes (a challenging word game invented by my friend and I).
If you’re into board games:
Targi is a worker placement game with a neat mechanic that is designed for 2 players.
The following games are multi player but I find to be pretty good as 2 player.
Carcassonne-mentioned above. I’ve only played the base game so the expansion mentioned earlier might be better.
Splendor-I find this works well for 2 through 4 players and often play with just 2.
War of the Ring-a 2 player game, but long (4-5 hours w/ setup). Good if you enjoy the setting. The rules are complex though.
I also enjoy Marvel Legendary a lot, but it’s probably not best as two players. But I’ll play it any opportunity I can get.
Instead of capturing the Trey-Deuce with a Five, you can play Five to the trick with the choice of saying “Still Fives” or “Building Ten.” The play is illegal unless you have another Five (or respectively Ten) in your hand. Once a sum is doubled (or tripled, etc.) it can’t be changed in the ways described next.
If there’s a built Five on the table and, say, a Four and an Ace, you can pick them all up with either a Five or a Ten. Or add a card building something new which matches a card in your hand. In any case you play exactly one card from your hand at each turn.
If you (or you opponent) has built Five (e.g. by placing a Deuce on a Trey) – and the Five is still single – , then holding, say Ace and Six you can add the Ace to the growing trick and say “Building Six.” (If you built the Five legally, you must have had a Five, even though you end up not using it.) If you make that play you run the risk that opponent has, say Deuce and Eight, and plays the Deuce saying “Building Eight.”
Another rule the linked page neglects to mention is that Trailing is illegal when you have a pending Build on the table.