Games for Two Players
Games specifically for two players or that play well at two players are essential for any gaming collection. Games for two come in all different sizes, complexity, and length. They are perfect for couples, siblings, or hanging out with your best friend. Throughout our adventure into the board gaming hobby, Kristina and I have collected many, many great two player games. They are great to play after a long hard day or during a cold winter night and make excellent games to introduce new players into the hobby. Playing two player games has brought us closer together as a couple and provided us with so many memories. Below is a list of games that I think will satisfy your board game cravings at two players.
Lost Cities
Do you want to hate yourself and your opponent at the same time? Then this one is for you. Lost Cities has a simple set of rules, but the game forces players into many tough decisions giving it incredible depth. I cannot begin to tell you how many times in Lost Cities I find myself looking at my hand thinking,
”I don’t want to play any of these.” Since everything, expect the cards in each player’s hand and the deck, is open information you have a decent idea what cards your opponent is looking for. This means you can keep those cards from them by hiding them in your hand, but that leaves less room for the cards that YOU need. Not to mention you need at least 20 points in a color to even score positive points making those decisions even more difficult. I am getting excited just writing this. Time to go play some Lost Cities.
Blitzkrieg!
A war game for two players that takes about 20 minutes and only has 4-5 pages of simple rules. That sentence has so many things wrong with it. How can a war game, which just the words “war game” turn many people away from the start, but more on that later, be only 20 minutes? How can it only have a few simple rules and fit on a small coffee table? I asked myself these same questions and Kristina didn’t exactly jump in excitement when I told her I bought a war game. So why is Blitzkrieg! on our list of games that are great for two players? Because it is fantastic. Yes, it is a war game and those are normally big and scary and have boring art, counters, and spreadsheets, but this is a war game in its simplest form. Don’t get me wrong, those games have their place and can probably be fun. They just aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. This game still manages to capture the joy of commanding an army while not dragging on too long. Winning feels great and if even if you lose, it only takes 20 minutes so just set up and play another round. Blitzkrieg! is an anomaly in board gaming and I will jump at the chance to show this to anyone willing to give it a try. Trust me, you will enjoy it.
7 Wonders Duel
Drafting is by no means new to gaming, but, historically, drafting for two players doesn’t make much sense. Game designers usually come up with some type of dummy hand/deck or don’t change the rules enough for 2 which leaves drafting feeling useless or just another step before playing the actual game. 7 Wonders Duel takes to player drafting and makes each card drafted mean just as much as the next even when you are not the player drafting it. Most of the information throughout the game is public. This means you always have some idea what cards your opponent would like to draft next. However, 7 Wonders Duel hides just enough of the information to make revealing any more of it a risk to your overall game plan. With 3 different victory conditions you must stay on your toes the entire game. The turns are quick and even during your opponents turn you are invested in the information or lack there of, that they might be uncovering. This results in virtually no downtime. Quick play time and swift setup means you can knock out several games of 7 Wonders Duel in one sitting. There is enough variability in each game to ensure this one will never get old.
Res Arcana
Unlike the other games on this list Res Arcana is not a 2 player only game. It can be played with up to 4 players, but really shines as a 2 player game. The game is essentially a race to 10 points which may not seem like too much. However, points are hard to come by and a single point makes a huge difference. This means that each game is extremely close and the last few turns are some of the most tense moments I have experienced in gaming. Even the act of being the first player to pass during a round grants that player one point which could mean the difference between winning and losing. While most card games rely on a large deck filled with duplicate cards, Res Arcana only has 40 cards. Of those 40 cards, each player only receives 8 per game. The other cards are put back in the box never to be seen again. Eight cards, that’s it. You most likely won’t even play all 8 of them for their printed purpose. It is so much fun to try to create a winning strategy out of so little and even more so when you can do it better and faster than your opponent. Res Arcana is a tiny bit more advanced than the other games on this list. The increase is mainly due to iconography on the cards. Once you play a game or two those icons become clearer and the game becomes just as easy to play as the rest of the list.
