I need suggestions for 2 Player Games. I was writing a series of blog posts called Man vs Wife, the point of which was for my wife and I to play a game, which I recorded, and then write up our experience playing the game along with some thoughts about the particular game. I want to continue the series, however, even though my wife has not lost any of the games, she doesn't really enjoy playing them mostly because for a large section of every game she is losing and only pulls out the win either because of luck or because I screw up or because in games with multiple hands/rounds she wins big enough one hand/round that it wipes out several of my smaller wins. Through the series, and from games we played that I didn't write about, I've found that while lots of games have rules for 2 Player play they are often really intended for 3 or more players, and the 2 Player rules often feel very mean and vindictive because you only have one player to take action against. Example, playing Uno in 2 Player, Reverse acts like Skip, so no matter what you do, all penalty cards - Skip, Reverse, Draw Two, Draw Four - happen to a single player, and when things line up you basically dump 4 or 5 cards in a row, win the game and make the other person draw a bunch of cards, leaving them feeling helpless and victimized. Example 2, Dungeon!, another player is supposed to roll damage against you for the monsters if you don't defeat them right away, which in 2 Player leads to the other player always rolling against you and when they get "lucky" a lot, it feels like the other player is defeating you, not the monster. So, I'm looking for 2 Player games that either don't pit the players directly against each other, or where the gameplay is so mind blowingly fun that who is winning or losing doesn't matter at all. A good example is Zombie Dice, which we enjoyed playing a lot because there is no attacking the other player, just your own decisions about continuing to roll or stopping and the luck of the dice. Suggestions?
Ascension! Get it on your iOS devices and play each other in real time, then jooooiiiinnn usssssss for more games.
I'm developing a decent collection of 2p games based on the notion that one day I can convince my wife to play them with me. It's unlikely, but I like to keep hope alive. I don't necessarily know what your wife might like, but there's a lot of different games here. Some suggestions: Morels - The darling of this year's Origins. Backordered to two months at its indie publisher. A set collecting game about finding and eating mushrooms in the forest. It's got an odd theme, but it's a hell of a lot of fun and the cards are really pretty. 2 de Mayo - A super basic, simultaneous, asymmetrical, hidden information wargame based on a moment in Spanish history. It's abstracted enough that if she's opposed to wargames she might be okay with this one. It's light and fast and a lot of fun if people are into it. I've considered on and off how I could host a game of it on here. Mr Jack Pocket - A fun, quick, light game about a guy who murders prostitutes. Fun! Really, it's a great little asymmetrical game where one person is trying to hide from the detective and the other person is trying to logically deduce just who the killer is. Another short game. Best of all, it'll take up no room on your shelf. Pocket Battles - Remember when I mentioned wargames earlier? If she is okay with a wargame theme, then you could do worse than Pocket Battles. A stripped down battle between ancient armies (and orcs and elves, if you want) all in fifteen minutes. Catan the Card Game - Actually, it's Rivals for Catan these days, but whatever. It's basically two player Catan. Well, it's basically solitaire Catan with some occasional trading. My wife loves Catan but hated this game cos of a combination of boring and the goddam bandits coming up turn after turn. Maybe yours will like it more? Claustrophobia - The ultimate one on one asymmetrical experience! Outside of Space Hulk, I guess. I've never played Space Hulk. One player is the desperate forces of the Church plunging into the depths of Hell, the other are an army of demons. The mechanics are much lighter than something like Space Hulk, but if she doesn't like the theme, she doesn't like the theme. Dungeon Twister - I only just picked this up, so maybe I'm talking nonsense. Seems like an adventure game mashed up with a chess variant. No luck. Lots of chances for screwing an opponent. Innovation - 2 to 4 player card game, but I find 2 players to be ideal as it gets pretty hectic with 3 or 4. It also tends to end up long enough as to wear out its welcome. With 2, though, I love it. Supposedly it's Civilization as a card game, but really it's what shit like Fluxx aspire to be. A chaotic, often messy, always fun trip through the ages where the rules are always the same but your constantly shifting tableau means they never mean the same thing from one game to the next. Summoner Wars - Considered by a number of people to be the two player game. The iOS app is due out this week and will be free to try one faction. If you like it, it's pretty goddam expandable. There are any number of cooperative games that can be played well with two. Gears of War, if she's okay with the theme, Space Hulk: Death Angel, if she's okay with the theme, the Lord of the Rings Card Game and Onirim all spring to mind. Other people with more direct experience with them might be along to suggest Race for the Galaxy or Dominion. I haven't played the first and don't care for the latter. I've heard positive things, though. Edit: Oh, and Ascension is good too.
I like Dominion a lot for two players, but reading the OP I felt it was contraindicated in this instance because it is directly competitive and in two player, you are essentially directing attacks at each other. It's a fantastic game, though.
I guess I missed that. Almost every single one of my suggestions pits people against one another! But most of them are fun. I donno about mind blowingly fun, but perhaps groin grabbingly fun? Who can say.
Playing against each other isn't the problem, but if the game allows for one person to mercilessly pummel the other person without them having a chance of fighting back, then it's going to be a no-go. As I said in the OP, plenty of games that are great fun with 3+ people turn into pummel-fests when they shoehorn the game into a 2 player mode and don't put in some way to throttle a player back to keep them from lining up indefensible victory. Essentially, any game that when in two player mode a player may, as part of their turn, prevent the other player from taking a turn. See: UNO. You could have 2 cards and I could have 11, but if my cards are Blue Skip, Red Skip, Red Reverse, Red Draw Two, Green Draw Two, Green Reverse, Draw Four Wild, Yellow Skip, Yellow Reverse, Yellow Draw Two, Yellow 5, and the last card played by you was blue, I can play all those cards, in that order, make you draw 10 cards and win the hand. And as unlikely as that may sound, and it is an extreme example, I probably have at least a third of 2 player UNO games end with one player playing 3+ cards for the win in a shorter but similar fashion.
I see you've already got Guillotine covered (although I have to say my experiences with the game were much more positive), and unfortunately Corsari is out of print or I would definitely push that. I would suggest taking a long look at Reinier Knizia's bottomless catalog of small box card games. I personally prefer more confrontational types of boardgames but he is very focused on balanced design. I like his Lord of the Rings 2p game (despite LotR generally not being a plus for me), Lost Cities, Blue Moon, and Battle Line. 7 Wonders gets a lot of positive comments about every player number in my experience, and I think it's right in that sweet spot where it's interactive but not destructive as its core mode of play. I haven't gotten my copy from the kickstarter yet, but there's a lot of positive buzz around D-Day Dice. I absolutely love Citadels as a 2p game, precisely because taking two roles gives you a strike-counterstrike in every turn that means it's really hard to wipe on bad luck rather than being psyched out. But it's probably too cutthroat. One huge subset of games is the "Space Hulk" 2p tactical confrontation games (wait, don't run away yet). While some of them are quite brutal and unforgiving, Claustrophobia is an exceptional combination of really cool cutting edge mechanics (in terms of boardgame uh technology), high production values, and quick setup/takedown. Each side plays very differently, and it's entirely feasible (in fact, really fun!) to switch sides after a run to see how the other guy does in your shoes. I can't say enough good things about the support the publisher has for it including free online scenarios and a really meaty expansion. On the more brain-burning (for non-programmers) end of the spectrum, Space Alert is a fantastic cooperative game that gets rid of the humdrum of coop (ie basically inefficient optimization of turns across two players) by re-creating a chain of command in the players as well as having hidden information that has to be done independently (not to mention a timer and comm failures!). I love it, and it's probably my favorite of Chvaatil's designs (although arguably Mage Knight would be an interesting option). In addition to the Mr Jack variants rec'd above, which I find a little too light on account of its core mechanic kind of hurting the theme-ness of the game by making it feel like red light green light rather than catching a serial killer, I would throw out Letters to Whitechapel if you can find a copy. Both times I've played it, it's seemed like a much superior "cat and mouse serial killer" type game to most entries in the genre.
Small World scales down nicely, according to my friend and her husband. (I personally haven't played it two player.) It is competitive, but won't normally devolve into one person dominating. You will each play a succession of races (like Spirit Giants or Rampaging Skeletons - an aside: the adjectives and the races are mixed up, so next game you could have for instance, Spirit Skeletons and Rampaging Giants) vying to control in a Small World. Let's see, I also like Lost Cities, where you play as opposing adventurers trying to make money in exotic locals. My brother tells me that Citadels (where you are trying to build the best cities/citadels by taking on specific roles each turn) and Carcassonne (where you are building cities and such by placing tiles and doing stuff and I suck at summarizing games) also scale really nicely. He's also been playing a lot of Hive, which is a two-player chess-like game with hexes. I've played a lot of two player Dominion, so I can heartily second that recommendation. If you have no attack card or even just one, it's not unpleasant at all. The Witch is the only card in the base game that ever feels soul-crushing. I love Pandemic, too, though again I've never played it with just two players. A note about price: Some of these games, particularly the ones that are up to four or more players, are a little pricy. Especially since many of them have expansions. If you're buying $40-$50 games every month, well, that adds up. With that in mind, here are the list prices for the games I mentioned: Small World ($50), Lost Cities ($25), Citadels ($28), Carcassonne ($30), Hive ($30 - has lovely, weighty pieces that are probably responsible for this price), Dominion ($45), and Pandemic ($40). Edit: I read this thread too quickly and missed a couple of things I can second - I've only played a couple of games of Innovation but enjoyed them both. It felt like it used my brain in a new way which was fun. I've also played a very little Race for the Galaxy and want to play more.
Or you could shop someplace that isn't ludicrous. Small World is $31 at CoolStuffInc and $37 at Amazon. Lost Cities and Citadels are both $16 at Miniatures Market and Hive for $21. If you think you might want to pick up a game, go visit its BGG page. Right under the main photo there's usually an ad showing how much it costs at some sponsor or another. Click 'view all' and you can see how much the game goes for at the five to seven major online board game retailers. Depending on which one you use you can even get free shipping at $75 to $100. CSI offers a rolling, increasing discount, as well. Or if you have Prime you can just go through Amazon. Though not everything is always available through Amazon themselves, so you often end up getting hit with shipping fees. But if you're hooked on your FLGS, I hope they're worth it. I know that some offer good prices and service (if I lived in Florida I'd be broke cos CSI would be local) but most just hit you with the MSRP.
Race for the Galaxy is one of my favorites for two players. It's a fairly quick game and the interaction is more prediction and pacing because you try to piggyback actions and time your endgame properly. With the expection of takeovers in the second expansion, there isn't much hostility in the game. Power Grid: Factory Manager plays fairly well with two players. It's probably my favorite bidding/money game for low player counts. Ticket to Ride is a classic game. For two players, I greatly prefer the Switzerland map. Roll Through the Ages is a pretty good dice rolling game. It's fairly quick and plays well with two players. Ghost Stories is another good cooperative game. When playing with two players, I play it with each player controlling two characters. Other already mentioned games that I enjoy two player include: Pandemic, Dominion, Carcassonne, Claustrophobia.
Here's my short list of games I'd recommend for two: Short Games (30-60m): Battle Line Citadels Summoner Wars Blue Moon Longer Games (1hr+) Claustrophobia Twilight Struggle Through the Ages (not Roll Through the Ages) Space Hulk Agricola
I've been introducing more 2-player games to my wife, who enjoys board games but doesn't have broad gaming experience. One path I've tried is with Jason Matthews' games. We started with Campaign Manager 2008, then moved to 1960: The Making of the President, and have now moved to Twilight Struggle. While she prefers 1960, building through the similar games gave her a solid foundation for the fairly weighty Twilight Struggle. I know that you're looking for MSRP, but Campaign Manager 2008 has been living on Tanga for a long time now at a very reasonable price. Other, shorter, games we play together include Jaipur and Lost Cities.
They're definitely on the pricier side of things, but the D&D-based boardgames--Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardelon, whatever they called that Drizz't one--are all excellent co-op games that work fine for small groups, and have a ton of replay value. Some of the scenarios are designed for solo play, and would work fine with two players; the multiplayer scenarios are designed for 2-5 players, and while they're a little harder with two players, that can easily be compensated for by tossing an extra "Wait, you're not dead!" token or two onto the recommended number in the stack.
While it's more meant for 3-6 players, I have played Fluxx with just me and my husband, and it works okay, depending on the particular fluxx deck. Eco, Monty Python and classic Fluxx work okay, zombie fluxx not so much. I haven't actually gotten around to trying the other flavors so I don't know how well those would work. A friend of mine recommends Zombie Dice, but I've yet to try it.
Zombie Dice works perfectly well for two players! And it's pretty fun. But it's also a super-fast game, for better or worse. The kind of thing you play while waiting for more people to show, or while someone's setting up a complex board, or maybe waiting the last fifteen minutes for the pizza delivery to arrive, not an evening's entertainment.
These are all good recommendations, although I would be wary of jumping into (my all time favorite game) Space Hulk at this point just because sales of it are dominated by speculators. Claustrophobia is a really inexpensive, high production value, fun variant of the 1v1 boardgame that Hulk typifies, and it has extensive support online and in a really nice little expansion. Unlike many games in the genre, it's really quick to setup and put away. It is generally a longer game just because you typically want to play a scenario once from each side, which pushes you from a compact game often under 45 minutes to a longer experience. I would also consider looking at the Arkham Horror base set (and avoiding expansions) if you think you might enjoy a lazy sunday game that is really cool thematically and the two of you can enjoy playing (and losing) cooperatively. My ultimate verdict is "avoid expansions unless you really know what you are doing" because the complexity creep is not worth it for a game that is ultimately about the experience. I love Space Alert. Space Alert with the expansion is even better, as it works solo and as a sort of boardgame roguelike so there's room to grow if you like it. It addresses the main problem of sockpuppeting in coop games (ie there's no good reason why the best player doesn't make all the calls) by having a really interesting combination of chain of command, time limits, and secret information. You fly your ship in space and horrible things happen to you, and it just gets better from there. Shorter games: Battle Line is right next to Lost Cities for me as an adversarial card game that uses mechanics that we tend to think of as solitaire-like to create a really interesting struggle between doing the best you can with your own side and addressing your opponent's strategy. They are both simple, portable, and play quickly. I like Hive. I like how it feels, and I like the addictive core mechanics. It is also portable and easy to explain, and especially well-suited to bars or outdoors or really anywhere you have a stable flat surface. Citadels. It's a great game. It plays really well with 2, 4, 5. and passably with 3 (if with 3 you use the alternate online rules for adding an additional role. It plays quickly and explains easily. I put it with Dixit (which is 3+ players, unfortunately) as one of my all time play with anyone kinds of games. other ideas I haven't played it yet but I think the Game of Thrones two player card game has a lot of promise. I've had good times in 2p teaching games of Glory to Rome but it's definitely a warm-up to the more interesting 4-5 player games. I'm not sure how I feel about Netrunner after five games or so but I'm kind of skeptical that it's a practical choice for people that aren't into deck building and tweaking. I'm still mixed on Mage Knight because I admire so much of what the game does but the execution seems really awkward to me at times; that said, two players hitting it recurringly would probably be the best way to enjoy it. I am unimpressed with the strength of the mechanics either as a dungeon crawler or as a coop experience in the D&D games, and would be inclined to look at Gears of War long before that as a successful and interesting coop implementation with AI opponents. I don't consider Fluxx a game so much as a way to pass time while randomly appointing people winners and losers, so I wouldn't recommend it and await its inclusion as a war crime in the next draft of the Geneva Conventions. YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY.
Netrunner is the kind of game that's fun for two if both players are actively engaged with learning the ins and outs. However, the mechanic where one side is playing cards face-down to trap the other player is premised on the idea that the other player has some foreknowledge of what kinds of things they ought be wary of, and that requires an investment by both players for the game to really shine. This is generally true of most card games with pre-built decks, but I think even harsher in Netrunner. The HBO Game of Thrones box combines a really cool game system that's been popular around the world for a decade now with a cheap, streamlined way to enjoy it for folks who otherwise aren't interested in investing hundreds of dollars in buying dozens of card sets. An interesting bit is that Game of Thrones has probably the best set of 4-player rules for any such card game I've come across - I've not actively tried it but I bet you could get a pretty good 4-player game out of 2 of the boxes. I'll also pitch the Star Wars LCG, as it's recently released and in my experience plays pretty well out of the box. The deckbuilding is significantly simplified compared to other games of this type (you build your deck by combining any 10 sets of 6 fixed cards rather than individually picking each card), and the core box comes with 19 such sets of Light Side and 19 such sets of Dark side cards. Enough to provide variety right out of the box but not so much as to overwhelm.
I'm hoping that the game does well enough that they see fit to do an expansion. It seems pretty obvious to go with a season two expansion and put that garish crown on the box. It can come with House Greyjoy and House Baratheon. Or House Baratheon and House Other Baratheon. I really don't know how the actual card game handles stuff like that. Anyway, once there are four premade decks, it shouldn't be hard to make it a four person game.
It's more likely they'd do Targaryen and Baratheon, which is how the LCG core set is structured. Baratheon generally gets handled by having both Lord and King versions of the brothers and having the King versions specify that they have to be the only Baratheon King in play to use their abilities. From a deckbuilding perspective this generally results in only playing the King version of one of the brothers in any given deck, although it's not a hard restriction but one imposed by the lack of synergy otherwise.
Understandable. Though in s2 the Targaryens didn't do a whole lot. I really know very little about the LCG and whether or not Greyjoys (or what other houses) are featured.
Greyjoys are featured along with Martell, but the LCG has the advantage of using illustrations for cards of things that are merely referenced in the books. The HBO version using screen captures would require a lot more characters and screentime devoted to the house intended to be put into the game, which as of right now I think only Targaryen and Baratheon have been fleshed out with enough different characters on screen to base a set of cards around. I feel like if you took every single character we've seen in Pyke and made each a card you'd still have less than 10 cards.
Two games my wife and I like that have already been mentioned are Race for the Galaxy and Lost Cities. She also likes Agricola, but our kids always want to play and I go insane with their dithering. I need short games with less set up time with the kids. I don't think Attika has been mentioned, and the wife really enjoys that game with two players.
I like that we continue to offer suggestions despite the fact that Jason hasn't posted since June and if you head over to the blog linked in the first post he hasn't actually updated his Man vs Wife series since May.
I've been watching, liking, and buying. The Man vs Wife hasn't been updated because the Wife, despite winning every game we play, seems to always find excuses not to play, all the while professing that she loves playing. And then, right when I got her to commit to playing, my father died and we've been dealing with that ever since. Hopefully I'll get it started back up again very soon. Anyway... lots of good stuff in here. Thanks for the suggestions. :)
I saw it kinda recommended, but I would like to throw my hat in the ring for Dominion. I've only ever played it 2 player and I love LOVE it. I play twice a week, and while yes some games can be based on attacking your opponent usually it's more like a race. And rarely is one game ever like another. If you do get it though, avoid the base set and get intrigue.
