Hi everyone,
I am looking for recommendations for some exceptionally fun two-player board games. I am just getting into the board game scene with a friend and we're currently exploring the recommendations online. However, I wanted to get some personal recommendations from Australia's foremost bargainers!
We have bought:
Kingdominio
Duel: 7 Wonders
Ticket to Ride: Europe
Thank you for all you suggestions,
Best,
XM
Here's a quick top 10 of our favourites at two players:
Hijacking this reply to mention Nisei System Gateway. A print and playable entry point in to Android Netrunner. I have just finished building it up and played about half a dozen games with my ten year old. Super satisfying project came out to about AU$50. 26 bucks to print at Officeworks on 210gsm Silk paper, 4 x 6 bucks for sleeves.
Targi, Azul, Lost Cities, Ticket to ride London (nice and short), Carcassone.
Yahtzee
Star Realms is a great head to head 2 player game.
For something more complex and recent that has been fairly popular there's Lost Ruins of Arnak that plays 1-4 players (they just released a few solo campaign for it).
Lost Cities
Codenames duet
A few of the games have already been mentioned here, but FYI BoardGameGeek has an annual award called the Golden Geek, and one of the categories is Best 2-Player Board Game - https://boardgamegeek.com/awardcategory/8392/golden-geek-bes…
I believe the winners are decided by votes from the BGG community, so it's a bit of a popularity contest, but still a good judge of whether a game is worth playing or not IMO :)
P.S. Don't forget to check the Nominees as well as the Winners!
Jaipur - 2 person trading game, desert themed, 30 min playtime
Fugitive - 1 person is the spy trying to escape, 1 is the detective hunting them - deduction based card game
Jaipur looks fun!
It really is. The game varies based on what commodities you're chasing too - it's worth watching a youtube game reviewer spend 5 or so mins discussing it if you want to see a little more, but it's probably the most played of my 2 player games [this year anyway]
I am a regular board gamer but mainly play 3 player with wife and friend. We have had the most fun with the following ones:
- Gloomhaven - Jaws of the Lion
- Harry Potter - Hogwarts Battle
- Pandemic
I'll second Gloomhaven - Jaws of the Lion. I don't play many games and this seemed to have a good level of complexity and story to make it really fun, perfect for 2 player with unique character each (up to 4 player) and is a story driven game with easy 'save' points.
I'll 3rd Jaws of the Lion even though I haven't played it. I've played 27 scenarios of Gloomhaven so have a pretty good idea of what you'd be in for. I have Jaws of the Lion in shrink wrap waiting to introduce someone else to the game via it's excellent tutorial missions.
This looks awesome - thank you.
I am also playing Gloomhaven (going on 2 years now) and I found JOTL to be a lot more refined game (have finished JOTL). It has the same rules as Gloomhaven but not the depth of complexity. It also has a lot more elements usage than Gloomhaven which is fun.
Warning: I spent more on paint than I did on the game, once the idea of painting the four characters got into my head I couldn't shake it off.
Anyone tried Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small (2 player version of Agricola)?
Another vote for Carcassonne, it's my favourite game of all time. If you have an iPad or iPhone, it's cheaper and quicker to play on that. Excellent implementation, multiplayer works well if you want to play new opponents.
Great topic. Good selection so far.
We found these good
Carcassonne: not exactly a two player game but plays very different at two and is very good
Patchwork
Lost Cities
I quite like Star Wars Risk.
Stratego. Mine and my son's favourite game ATM.
patchwork
splendor
terraforming mars
azul
dominion
pandemic, ticket to ride, century, alhambra also good, but even better for 3-4 people.
We play the following with two players:
- wingspan
- all version of ticket to ride, currently Japan is a favourite
- dominion
- machi Koro
- 7 wonders duel
- kingdom builder
- fungi
- monopoly deal
- takenoko
- splendour
- Catan
- flashpoint (coop)
Watergate
Quarto is pretty great strategy game for two player, it takes 10 - 15 minutes for a game and gives plenty of space for conversations
7 Wonders Duel :)
I was going to recommend these 2 anyway.