My girlfriend and I have been playing and enjoying Carcassonne. We also have played Hanabi. I play Magic and will be teaching her that. What are some other fun two player games we can try? Already aware of most 52 Card Deck games like Cribbage so not those unless you know a unique one. Would enjoy both cooperative or adversarial games. Any and all suggestions.
Thanks.
I’m a big fan of Fidelitas.
Cribbage is all you need to know.
It rocks!
Splendor is great, for 2-4 players.
Jaipur is a great 2-player game.
Dominion plays well with two players.
I also enjoy Letters from Whitechapel with two players.
If you like Magic, you might enjoy Mage Wars, nowadays called Mage Wars Arena- basically Magic played on a game board, where you actually practice zone control and movement, while casting spells from an actual spellbook.
This variant of Rummy:
Arkham Horror is a complicated game to get into, and a difficult one to get good at… but it absolutely rocks.
Targi is a good two player (only) game. I’ve only played it once, but 7 Wonders Duelis highly regarded
I think Castles of Burgundyscales well from 2-4
Brian
Blokus 3D, Codenames Duet, Fields of Green, Fog of Love, …and then we held hands, Agricola, Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small, Patchwork, Paperback, Isle of Trains, Pandemic, Viticulture: Essential Edition.
Ha! I just came back in to suggest exactly that.
All of these are better with 4+ but are still fun with 2:
Sushi Go!: cute, quick little card game that will have you dying for some sushi.
Zombie Dice: quick, press-your-luck dice game.
Roll For It: great little dice game (literally; it comes with 6 sets of tiny dice!). Probably my favorite of these three. Roll dice to match sets as specified on cards for points. That’s a terrible description but trust me, it’s fun.
I’ll endorse it as well. So great especially if you’re even a bit of a Lovecraft fan.
And if you are, there is also Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu.
I strongly recommend the basic Pandemic game:
Please keep the suggestions coming. I have been looking at some of them and see some possibilities. One followup question: I have actually been considering getting Dominion even before this thread but unsure where to start. There are a lot of versions available.
For Dominion, start with the original set and see if you like it. If you do, I recommend Prosperity next. If you get sick of those two, come back here and get 10,000 opinions.
Have you played any deck building games before? If you want to check out the genre before diving in, I’d suggest Flip City. It’s a good gateway game into deck building.
Yeah, I’d skip Dominion. It’s a fun game, but there are some better alternatives out now that take up less room and are quicker to set up and put away, and which are less abstract (think Poker versus Magic - they might both be fun, but the one with more thematics is just more interesting in the long run).
I have Flip City. It’s pretty good but even with the expansion it’s pretty limited on variety.
The one that I’ve heard is a great couples deckbuilder, with a small footprint, is Dale of Merchants.
I’ve played Star Realms and that has a pretty good replay value with just the base set, let alone with the expansions and the fantasy version. Play it to the max hit points that you can after splitting evenly for your player count.
Mystic Vale is good too, clever mechanics. Simple on the surface, but with quite a bit of hidden depth. Plus the whole “gambling with one’s turn” aspect makes for memorable plays.
Holy cow, there’s a 3D version? I think regular 2-dimensional Blokus is all I can handle!
For the OP and his GF, I recommend the 2-player game (Blokus Duo/Travel Blokus) most highly.
For quick-but-fun on alternative decks of cards, I like Monopoly Deal. A lot more fast-paced and fun than the actual board game.
Dammit, I forgot to mention the most essential 2-player board game of all time : Blood Bowl ! Chess meets American Football meets LotR meets cursing your *fucking *dice. At length.