Board game help

Hello!

I was hoping to get a few board game suggestions that could be played by two people. My friend’s birthday is coming up. Him and his girlfriend have been spending time during quarantine playing board games. They are in their early 30s if that’s any consideration.

I was looking at Clank! In! Space! It seems interesting but didn’t know if it was more of a kids game or not (if that even matters!).

Thanks!

There's a game I really like and so does my partner called Escape the Dark Castle. It's a co-operative game that tells a story as you play it of prisoners trying to escape a castle. Similar to a choose your own adventure game. It's short, fun and highly replayable.

Someone will recommend or mention Fog of Love so I'll get it out of the way. This can be a great, or a terrible game to play with your significant other. It's exclusively a 2 player game, so it's perfect. Except the entire point of the game is to control two people in a relationship and the sort of real world scenarios they end up in. It's a great co-op game, unless its the sort thing that might open up wounds when you have to visit your in game partners mother in law and you try get out of it.

Bärenpark is a great little game about building a zoo, it's fun and the game itself looks great.

You could also consider something like a two player starter set for card games like Magic or Keyforged. Keyforged is a good one because every single deck is unique and there's no deck building, so your deck is your deck.

It's illegal to not mention Star Wars: Rebellion and Twilight Struggle when talking about 2 player board games but they're both also large sprawling games that not everyone might not be for everyone.

Some of my other 2 player favourites are Codenames Duet, 7 Wonders Duel, Dominion, Targi and Carcassone. Any of the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective games are also terrific.

I have a flow-chart-esque set of recommendations for you:

1. Do they like working together or competing against each other? If they like working together, jump to part 2; otherwise, jump to part 3.

2. Do they love Marvel? If they do, I'd recommend Marvel Champions: The Card Game. It's a fantastic cooperative card game that sees each player taking a hero of their choice and going up against a villain. It's sort of a must-buy if they both like Marvel, and even if they aren't huge fans, it might be worth a look.

If they dislike Marvel, I would recommend Aeon's End. Definitely not for them if they don't like generic fantasy, but it's a great deckbuilder that really encourages teamwork.

3. Do they like stomping on each other's plans and being mean? If they do, pick up Unmatched. It's a skirmish game about maneuvering around a map and beating up on the other player, it has some of the coolest art in anything ever (Mondo, the movie poster people, did the art), and it's extremely quick. There are a bunch of different sets to choose from, so just choose the one that looks interesting.

If they dislike direct conflict, I'd give a hearty recommendation to Wingspan. It has a great theme (birds!), great art, and is very easygoing. It's my partner's favorite board game to play by a wide margin.

Clank's really fun, it's not just a kids game at all. We also like Splendor as a card game. Bloodborne and Pandemic (uhhh) are quite fun but with 3 or more people.

^^ I really want to try Wingspawn but copies are currently way overpriced b/c it's sold out haha. I know there is a digital version coming to steam but is there a tabletop sim or something that has it?

My girlfriend and I have been playing Codenames: Duet and it's a fun co-op game. It comes with a lot of cards but the games themselves are pretty short. We have Pandemic but haven't tried it with two people yet. The one I'd definitely recommend is Carcassonne, it's easy to pick up but the games can go for 30-45 minutes and we've had a great time just the two of us. It's not co-operative but it's not too cutthroat either. It's also just a very aesthetically pleasing game haha, you lay the tiles to this medieval landscape out one-by-one and it always looks cool at the end.

Oh yeah and Monopoly Go is another fun card game, Jeff B. has talked about it on the beastcast but it's a stripped down version of monopoly that's still fun to play and works with two people. It's definitely more on the competitive side though haha.

I'd second Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective as a great experience for two people, especially if they like mysteries at all. Maybe not exactly what you're after but Qwirkle is also really fun and seems to scale well for few or multiple players. OH also, Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert work with 2 players and then can be even more fun with more... eventually!

7 Wonders Duel is a 2 player only board game that I think is really fun.

@terminallychill said:

I don't know about any tabletop simulator versions, but I thought I saw it on Amazon for the MSRP. There are still people trying to scalp it for hundreds of dollars, though, which is weird.

There is both an official tabletop sim DLC for Wingspan as well as a planned stand alone release for the game on Steam.

Betrayal at House on the Hill can be a bit complicated but once it's going is a ton of fun.

Love Letter is super easy to understand and absolutely great, especially if you need a small side game while other people finish something else up.

Codenames has a number of themed spin-off versions that are perfect for people into those fandoms.

Loving everyone’s suggestions so far! Currently have about 8 chrome tabs open of the different contenders. I actually might pick up the Sherlock Holmes game for myself that a few people suggested so far, looks like a lot of fun.

I’ll keep looking at suggestions people post about! Will most likely order something tomorrow. Thanks for all the help!

Here are the games I own that I recommend for 2 players in board games without hesitation. I will try to organize them by complexity, though I don’t personally play many highly complex games.

Light: Patchwork, Carcassonne, Kingdomino, Azul, Forbidden Island or Pandemic, Splendor, Cat Lady

Medium: Arcadia Quest, Mansions of Madness 2nd Ed.

Heavy: Gloomhaven, Arkham Horror LCG

I'm gong to suggest a few based on what my wife and I like. We mostly play co-op games.

Folklore The Affliction - kind of an RPG in a box. Pure co-op.

Descent 2nd Edition - Another RPG kind of game. Has a versus story mode where one person is the "DM" while the other half plays the adventuring party. It's a singular campaign that swings back and forth depending on who wins the previous round. Also has a co-op mode via an app.

Star Wars: Imperial Assault - A Star Wars retheme of Descent with some rules changes. I don't really see a reason to own both, as they both have a large amount of expansions to collect. If they like Star Wars, I'd go with this over Descent.

Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition - Walk around, fight things, get mcguffins. It's purely co-op as there's an app for 2nd edition. We own both 1st and 2nd edition - it's fun enough, though I can't really get into them for some reason.

Mice and Mystics - Following in the tradition of co-op fantasy RPGish games. This is a very light game, focusing more on a fairy tale story. It's cute and fun, but it is meant for those looking for a game that's lighter on rules.

Zombicide - Normal day and fantasy settings. Cooperative dice throwing game with lots of minis. Honestly, I tire of this the fastest but it's fun to put on the table and it's a pretty light game to play. I think the fantasy version has better rules.

Shadows of Brimstone - Cooperative cowboy Chtulu horror board game version of Diablo. You need... a huge table. Comes in cowboy and samurai themes that can be combined. You level up, go to town to buy stuff, collect loot, turn loot into resources to buy loot, and have story encounters. The dungeons are randomly generated and you can find portals to other worlds. It's super thematic.

Unfortunately, I'm not a big fan on the combat and there is a lot of combat. My wife thinks its fine, but really is in it for the between dungeon story events.

This game also requires a bit of assembly - for the western version of Brimstone, I don't see a single reason for this. The minis don't look good enough to require the assembly effort.

Village Attacks - It's a co-op board game version of Orcs Must Die or Tecmo's Deception. You play monsters who defend their lair from peasants by using traps or... getting up close and doing the job yourself.

Splendor - Quick to learn resource management vs. game. I never want to play it, but when I do, I can easily lose an hour or two to it.

Forbidden Isle/Desert - Your team versus the clock as you hunt down McGuffins and try to get back to safety. It's fun and quick to play.

Talisman - I jokingly call it fantasy Monopoly. It's a game that never seems to end. Strangely, I was -super- into this game for a few weeks. It just... never ends. Imagine having everything you need to win a game, but you have to land on an EXACT spot to progress. By the time you finally land on that spot, everyone else passed you in experience and gear laps ago and you're no longer in a position to win. Man, Talisman sucks...

Kingdom Death Monster - It's Monster Hunter meets Dark Souls meets Civ with a sprinkle of the crusty side of a waifu pillow, and a heavy dose of catastrophic failures because you rolled a die poorly. It's also $400 (I got it from the first kick starter at $100) and requires hours of hobby time to assemble the five miniatures you'll need for the first five "years" of the game (Roughly five hours). We had to buy a new table to fit this game.

Despite this, KD:M has my wife and I coming back often, even through the heartbreak. You lord over a town that sends four folks out on hunts. By killing monsters, you get resources in which you build gear and upgrade your town's tech tree. The hunted monsters are controlled by an AI deck that can punish you for using the same tactics over and over. Why do we enjoy this frustratingly hard game that has some aesthetics we really hate?

I really enjoy kitting out our survivors and plotting out upgrades. It's like X-Com in that sense. My wife likes the emergent stories - like the village idiot who lost a hand in a fight. The same village idiot fell in love with a rock and needed to carry it everywhere with him making him absolutely useless. We used him as a meat shield on fights and he'd never die. After one particularly grueling fight, our best fighter and him were the only ones to return to town. The town wanted a reenactment of the fight and of course... Mr Rock Love accidentally kills our best fighter , became addicted to eating bone marrow, and ended up murdering villagers in our town.

@zelyre: Talisman is the best worst game. We're currently playing on TTS a master game of it using every single expansion. My favourite talisman story is about how my friend played his first game, got to the Crown of Command and was a single dice roll away from winning. I was moving around the City board and pulled some card called "Taxes". Because he didn't have 2g to pay the tax, he got put in jail. It was such bullshit.

This was such an easier question to answer 8-10 years ago... so I'm going to stay real simple and relative to your first post. You won't go wrong with Clank. I haven't played Clank in Space, but i've played base Clank, the underwater map, and the Clank Legacy (awesome!), and those are all terrific. And if you like Clank, you should try out a game it borrows heavily from- Dominion. Dominion is, of course, the inarguably greatest card game ever.

Cairn is a fantastic 2 player strategy game. A round lasts about 20 minutes, it's super quick to learn but has enough depth to it that it has great replayability. It became a daily fixture in our house as a post dinner game for about 4 months straight.

If the Sherlock Holmes game sounds interesting Mythos Tales is in the same vein, but drenched in Lovecraft, making it what I personally prefer. This comes with the caveat that you'll need to look up the online errata as the book does contain a few small errors.

Netrunner is a fantastic cardgame where one player is a hacker (or Runner) and the other a futuristic mega corporation (Corp). The Runner has a deck of cards that represent tools, abilities etc to hack the Corps servers, the Corp has a deck of cards that represent server defenses, smear campaigns, traps etc. One of the best competitive card games I've ever played, the license for producing it has expired now so I'm not entirely sure how easy it is to find anymore.

If you guys like Lord of the Rings and are willing to sacrifice an entire day to a board game, War of the Ring remains the best board game I've ever played and the best experience I've had in 20+ years of board gaming.

I'll also just add +1 for Descent (get the ai app), Pandemic (Legacy if you have a lot of time to spare) and Escape the Dark Castle.

Don't know if anyone mentioned it, but Watergate is one of the best 2 player games out there, worth a look.

@twolines: Was just going to jump in with Watergate, absolutely love it. Holy crap, what a game.

And doubling down on other suggestions: 7 Wonders Duel, and Patchwork. These three are all 2 player specific. These are great, not too pricey, and if they aren’t big board gamers, a nice start.

I really dig Clank! In Space though too. At 2-Players the tension is knocked down just a bit, since you don’t have to worry as much about someone going after the same treasures etc.

Star Realms is cheap, quick, simple, and super satisfying. My wife and I use to play it all the time just to decide who would have to go pick up food, take out the trash, or had baby duty that night. A good addition to if you go with one of the other smaller games mentioned from others.

BattleCON Devestation of the Indines Remastered is incredible at simulating fighting games via cardplay. Dozens of characters so there is a lot to play around with. There is some neat but not perfect Co-op options as well. A little more expensive than Clank, just to keep budget in mind.