I love deck building games - Marvel Legendary is probably my favorite. You can play one or two player or up to five, I believe. I think the mechanics of this game are absolutely genius, but it is an investment. You are playing both co-op and competing at the same time, and no two games have the same rules, characters, etc. I love that the mechanics of each character card match the actual superhero’s abilities. So Nightcrawler can teleport to another hand, Captain America gains strength by uniting different types of hero cards, etc. Some of the expansions make it incredibly difficult to beat the villain, so you have to have a sense of humor about how badly you’re about to get stomped.
I hate Dominion. I found it very repetitive.
Ascension is a good pick if you’re new to deck building.
My favorite strictly two player game is Rivals for Catan, a card/resource management game based loosely on the board game. This one seems to have held up to the test of time between me and my husband. Usually plays out in less than 2 hours. There are plenty of expansions to keep things interesting.
Runner-up is Lost Cities, which never lasts more than an hour and you can play on very little brain fuel. Mechanics are very simple, but mastering the strategy is tricky. It combines chance with strategy and can make for some fun, lighthearted competition.
We bought Arkham Horror, played one session, loved it, found out we played it wrongly, and haven’t had the chance for a re-do.
Mice and Mystics is a good multi-session full campaign RPG board game we’ve enjoyed. You play heroes who were turned into mice, and fight bugs, evade cats, etc. We screwed up that one too. But we had fun, that’s what counts!
I loooove that game but it’s not as fun with just 2 players. It’s doable (you can take on multiple characters per player) but it’s better with a full or near-full group.
We play a few variants of the usual game. I like the pressure of having a set amount of time each move. Player 1 moves and hits the timer. Player 2 must complete their move in the time allotted (10 - 30 seconds).
Well, I mean, I’ve had people tell me about how flavorful a particular piece of lettuce is. I assume that they’re telling the truth, in their view, as a person who mostly lives on a diet of salad, tofu, and chicken. I don’t think they’re lying, not that they need to switch it up to more flavorful food - my thing doesn’t have to be their thing - and the OP may be that sort of person. But the average person does eat curry, and so it’s safer to recommend things from that vantage.
Bumping this thread because my wife and I just picked up a Steam download that we’re enjoying, even as much as it is stressing us out! It’s a cooperative game, and I my search shows that at least one other Doper has played and enjoyed it, so I’ll just paste krondys’s description here.
While I can definitely see how it works as a party game, it also goes really well with two people. My wife and I just sat next to each other on our separate computers, so long as one person doesn’t look at the other’s screen. If you’re a romantic couple, the game will definitely help you work on your communication skills.
The Duke and Hive are good games for people that like Chess but want something different. (One warning about The Duke; it was published just five years ago but it’s out of print. So prices for it have gone crazy.)
I’m puzzled that there’s been no mention of the old classics, chess, checkers, and go, even if only to say that the OP isn’t interested in them. But they don’t really seem like games which can be ignored.
There’s a bit of “snobbery” amongst serious board gamers towards the old classics like Monopoly - probably because whenever you tell people you play board games regularly, their first response is always, “Oh, like Monopoly!” No, actually, nothing at all like Monopoly. The games we play are to Monopoly what current video games are to Pong.
Which, I realize, doesn’t specifically address the chess/checkers question, but it kind of does, in a way. We’re usually looking for the New Hotness, not the Old Tiredness.
But even if you personally don’t find them fun, obviously a lot of people, both now and throughout history, have and do, so there’s a chance that maybe the OP does like them. And even if we’re assuming that he already knows about them, knowing whether he does like them would guide us to suggest or avoid similar games.
Okay, suggest the games you want to suggest for the purposes you want to suggest them. If you think suggesting chess is a valuable strategy, use it. I don’t, so I won’t.
You’re overlooking one of the oldest and greatest classics of all: Backgammon. Backgammon-like games are as old as ancient Sumeria, though the rules of such ancient games haven’t been deciphered. However there is an ancient Greek game whose rules have been reconstructed and which is extremely close to modern backgammon.
Unlike chess or go, where the stronger player will essentially always win unless there’s a handicap, with luck a backgammon novice can beat a champion in any single game. Yet the stronger player will prevail in the long run. Backgammon combines skill and luck in an amazing and exciting way. (When building up your skill, practice plenty of “back games”!)
In the early 20th century, the doubling cube was introduced to this ancient game, giving a huge boost to both the game’s excitement and its skill factor. Just as people keep score in fun bridge games, it is possible to play with a doubling cube without playing for money: Play matches of 11 points (or whatever).
The doubling cube, very very vaguely similar to betting in poker, could be applied to other games. But has it ever been applied to a game besides backgammon?
No, we are not snobbish towards Monopoly because it is old, we are snobbish towards Monopoly because MONOPOLY IS A TERRIBLE GAME. It wasn’t even good when it came out and the fact that it appears to be entering some sort of bizarre renaissance by selling “themed” copies of itself is awful.
Anyway, with regard to Chess/Checkers/Go/Whatever, I think most people don’t recommend them because there’s an assumption that if a game has been around for 400 years, people have probably already heard of it.
I just read it again and the response seems an appropriate clarification? Sure, there’s the “monopoly=pong” comparison, but it’s not a perfect comparison since Pong was once entertaining while Monopoly has always sucked.
I think my point stands about why people don’t like Monopoly though. Also note that my entire comment was intended to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
I think we’re mostly coming from the same place; I wasn’t saying Monopoly is bad because it’s old; I was also saying that boardgamers are dismissive of games like Monopoly because they suck, and we have soooooooo many better options now.
We really do like the new hotness games, arguably to the detriment of enjoyable gaming. In our regular gaming group, I’m starting to push more for us doing more repeat playing of games that we like - I find that I enjoy the games so much more once I have a clue what I’m doing, and I can start to try some strategies with a familiar game rather than just flailing around with this week’s new game.
