Board Games For 2
September 23, 2021 4:05 PM   Subscribe

I’ve been enjoying playing board games with a group but find it really socially demanding as an awkward introvert and in other situations, it’s rare for me to have 3 or 4 players. What games are fun for just 2 adult people? Any complexity level, price, or style is fine.
posted by Aranquis to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (39 answers total) 73 users marked this as a favorite
 
7 Wonders Duel. I both own it and have given it as a wedding gift.
posted by deludingmyself at 4:12 PM on September 23, 2021 [5 favorites]


Codewords has a cooperative 2-player version.

Not really board games, but Bananagrams and Set both work with two people.
posted by esoterrica at 4:14 PM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]


My husband and I enjoy playing Carcassonne, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, trivial pursuit, and Ticket To Ride as just a twosome.
posted by obfuscation at 4:17 PM on September 23, 2021




Ticket to Ride is maybe a little bit more straightforward with two players, in that your routes don't get blocked as much. But it's no less fun for it.
posted by pipeski at 4:41 PM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]


Backgammon.
posted by coffeecat at 4:44 PM on September 23, 2021


Less complex but fun:

Patchwork is made for two and a cute little strat game.
Lost Cities can also be kinda fun and is made for two.

More complex and fun, both are co-op games:

Pandemic: Legacy S1 was great, our variation used four characters and the two of us played the turns collaboratively.

Spirit Island, fairly complex to get the rules/spirits/etc and can be difficult to win. I like this kind of challenge.
posted by sibboleth at 4:45 PM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]


Azul
posted by aniola at 4:50 PM on September 23, 2021 [3 favorites]


SHADOWS OVER THE EMPIRE!! AHHHH!!
For a long time my wife and I only bought games that can be played with two players so that we wouldn't have games gathering dust.
This is the one I have the most fun with, feels like it has the most repeatability, difficulty levels can be adjusted, we will finish and want to another round IMMEDIATELY. It is a strategy game that is both simple and complex, about gaining social influence over important people in a fantasy court.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 4:51 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]


We've been really enjoying Parks! There's enough going on that it's interesting, but you don't have to be at peak brain power to play. Seconding Lost Cities.

(We also enjoy Twilight Struggle but you really have to be In It for that one, which I rarely am these days.)
posted by goodbyewaffles at 4:53 PM on September 23, 2021 [3 favorites]


2nding Patchwork and Lost Cities, which are small boxes with very little set up.

We play a LOT of 2-player games, and we have worn out our original sets of the following: Targi, Imhotep: Duel, Watergate (all designed for 2 players), as well as two-player variants of It's a Wonderful World, Terraforming Mars (with Preludes and Colonies expansions), and our current obsession, Dune Imperium.
posted by nkknkk at 4:55 PM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]


Some repeats and some new:

Ticket to Ride
Carcassonne
7 Wonders Duel
Lost Cities
Sequence
Illimat (not as well known, but an interesting strategy game)
Backgammon
Don't forget card games: Hand and Foot ; Cribbage
posted by hydra77 at 4:56 PM on September 23, 2021


Onitama
posted by mattholomew at 4:57 PM on September 23, 2021


Husband and I have been liking “Fox in the Forest” and it’s co-op counterpart “Fox in the Forest Duet” for low-key, low-stakes gaming. Both are designed for two (rather than being larger games with a duo variant).

When we want to really dig in on strategy (read: when I want to have my butt soundly and embarrassingly beaten) we often reach for “Hive”. Excellent game, and the expansions are worth it.
posted by Dorinda at 4:57 PM on September 23, 2021


Technically cards, but big fan of Hanabi and Dominion. Castles of Burgundy and Agricola work well for two if you want something more complex.
posted by ferret branca at 4:58 PM on September 23, 2021


I like playing Wingspan with two people just as much as with more.
posted by somedaycatlady at 5:20 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]


Jaipur!
posted by fedward at 5:32 PM on September 23, 2021


I love Nusfjord with two. It's definitely on the more complex side. It's in the series sort of similar economic engine / resource management / worker placement / eating food games by Uwe Rosenberg that started with Agricola, but I think Nusfjord (especially with two) has a really nice clean design and flow, and moves quickly.
posted by aubilenon at 5:50 PM on September 23, 2021


We like Splendor in my house; if it gets boring, you can make a number of modifications that make it better (shuffle all cards together, make conditions about what you can do when, change the number of coins available). There's also an expansion that is worth it if you like the base game.
posted by blnkfrnk at 5:52 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]


If you like board games but just don't have enough IRL people to play with, you might also consider Board Game Arena which I discovered during the pandemic. There is a small MeFi group there. It's kind of nice to be able to just try some games out to see if you like them before committing. I am usually a Scrabble player but I've also enjoyed learning Letter Tycoon, CuBirds, Happy City, Monster Factory and Lucky Numbers which are all fine as two person games as well as Solo (basically Uno) which is good for two or more players.
posted by jessamyn at 6:00 PM on September 23, 2021


Morels is an extremely relaxing 2-person card game.

+1 Hanabi
posted by momus_window at 6:13 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]


Seconding Wingspan! Also love Forbidden Island.
posted by advicepig at 6:39 PM on September 23, 2021


I was fairly impressed with these three lists the Dice Tower came up with:
Top 10 Casual Two-Player Games
Top 10 Advanced Two-Player Games
Top 10 Intermediate Two-Player Games (Super Secret)
posted by meinvt at 6:57 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]


2nding Splendor. Splendor is great for making "house rules". One of ours includes saying SPLENDOR! loudly and dramatically whenever 'you have a visit from a noble'.

And throwing in Codenames: Duet.
posted by JennyJupiter at 7:22 PM on September 23, 2021


* Chess
* Othello, aka Reversi (my favorite)
posted by NotLost at 7:47 PM on September 23, 2021


Star realms is one of our house favorites.
posted by Pretty Good Talker at 7:50 PM on September 23, 2021


Go
posted by aniola at 10:40 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]


BoardGame Geek is web site that's all about boardgames. They have a thing called Geek Lists, which are lists of things, usually games with some commentary.

This is a search for Geeks Lists with the phrase "best 2 player games" in the title.

This is a search for games that will play with 2 players.

The site can be a bit overwhelming but folks are generally friendly and helpful if you ask questions in the forums and they are definitely well versed in their hobby.
posted by Awfki at 4:46 AM on September 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


Patchwork
Jaipur
Agricola: All Creatures Big And Small
Hive
Splendor
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:50 AM on September 24, 2021


Last year board game review youtubers Shut Up and Sit Down covered several 2 player games in their "Chess Month" series: Ice Team, Cairn, Targi, Chess variants

Seconding the suggestion of Go (aka Weiqi/Baduk), which they also covered

There's an entire subgenre of historical war games of which the already mentioned (and excellent) Twilight Struggle is just the tip of the iceberg, and many of these are 2 player games. They are some of the best 2 player games if you can stomach the complexity and subject matter. Here are some of my favorites, ordered by increasing complexity:

Supply Lines of the American Revolution
Sekigahara (Sengoku era Japan)
Empire of the Sun (WW2/Pacific War)

Lastly not a board game but a card game, Netrunner is a terrific 2 player game. The game is no longer commercially supported, but earlier this year fan-run nonprofit collective NISEI produced an introduction to the game called System Gateway , which is a great standalone entry point to the game, IMO even better than the original intro set. I would recommend both the "Starter pack" and additional "Deckbuilding pack" if you can afford it, together this has a ton of replayability as a casual standalone thing.
posted by okonomichiyaki at 6:12 AM on September 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


It's a dice game rather than board game, but Yahtzee is a fun one.
posted by mcbeth at 6:48 AM on September 24, 2021


There are a few suggestions above for multi-player games that work okay with two, but I will offer up a few dedicated two-handers. The Duke is an interesting quasi-chess variant which is of course two-player only. If you want to go literally as old school as you can, Senet is not too shabby for a game 55 centuries or so old. Shogi is a chess-like Japanese traditional game which I was mad for at one point in my life.

If you’re going for modern games, Twilight Struggle is very highly ranked; I also like 1960: Making of the President.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:34 AM on September 24, 2021


I play a bunch of 2 player games with my little brother when I go home to visit family.

Seconding Jaipur and 7 Wonders Duel and Lost Cities and Targi.

Imperial Settlers is a lot of fun as a 2 player game but can expand to at least 4 if you want.

But the king of two player games, in my estimation, is NetRunner (which I see okonomichiyaki has also suggested). It's been a long time since I played, because they stopped releasing official expansions when the license lapsed with Fantasy Flight. But when I played, it was an incredibly cool game. It's asymmetric: one player is playing a giant megacorporation trying to either complete evil plans or murder the other player, and the other player is playing a hacker trying to steal/expose the evil plans or run them out of resources. It can be really tense and exciting.
posted by JDHarper at 7:48 AM on September 24, 2021


I'd suggest KeyForge, which was developed by the same guy who did NetRunner and MTG, but has the advantage (or disadvantage, depending on viewpoint) of not having to buy 1000 cards and build your own deck. Each deck is meant to be played on it's own and they're relatively cheap. There's lot's of replayability even with the basic set.

Also Karmaka, which is tons of fun and has beautiful art, and is simple enough to play in 2 minutes, but complex enough that strategies change depending on who you are playing.(disclaimer, game designer is a friend, but I would recommend it anyways)
posted by sauril at 8:10 AM on September 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


My partner and I have been working our way through Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders for a while. There are 10 cases included and the players work together to solve the mystery. We do one every few months and we usually put 2 to 3 hours of time into each case.

The game mechanics incentivize doing it as fast as possible, but each case includes a fair bit of information that isn't strictly required. We very early on decided to not worry about points and to do our best to thoroughly exhaust the content.
posted by cCranium at 8:18 AM on September 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


Lovecraft Letter is great. Also, cribbage
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 2:50 PM on September 24, 2021 [1 favorite]


Cat Lady and Agricola: All Creatures... are commonly-played in our house. Cat Lady is a fun little set collection card game with cute art and cute cats, and Agricola is a massively streamlined implementation of the big-box Euro, with nice wooden pieces, where you build farms and raise animals.

Cat Lady scales up to four (or five, I think, with the expansion) while Agricola is for two players only.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:48 PM on September 26, 2021


Call to Adventure!

You are basically creating a D&D character's backstory and then the story of how they achieve their ultimate goals! Can be as serious or as stupid as you feel like. Coming up with how all the pieces fit together to tell a story is a ton of fun. Mr. Moons & I play it together and prefer it that way over playing with 4!
posted by moons in june at 5:07 PM on September 26, 2021


I've enjoyed Odin's Ravens, a little card game that sets up terrain for 2 of Odin's Ravens to race through (with mischief made by playing Loki cards).
posted by ikahime at 9:03 AM on September 28, 2021


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