Two Player Games Rankings

Before I get started, there are a few that are good at a lot of player counts. But I think a lot of people will prefer them at two, or they offer a different experience at two, so I’ll call out those on the list.

14. Star Wars: Destiny

Bottom of the list just because I had this game, I started to kind of get into it, but it’s a TCG style game. Trading card games are harder to play just because you need someone else who is into it. I recently sold my cards to a friend because, well, I wasn’t going to play it again. The game is fun, I don’t think it’s better than Magic, which isn’t on my list because I prefer it as a free for all. And like Magic, it’s harder to find time to play it.

13. Blossoms

Blossoms is a push your luck game with some choices. It really, though comes down to push your luck as you are growing plants. How far do you want to push, or will you bust. Game play is very simple, decision space is very limited. But it’s not a bad game. If you want a two player game you could play with anyone, Blossoms works for that.

12. Cribbage

Now Cribbage, I really like this game. The concept is simple but the game play is good and there is strategy to what you play. I’m not great at cribbage, but I have a nice board that I need to use sometime soon. The game plays fast, and this is really one of those great bar or brewery games where you don’t need much, and it’s a nice game to play.

11. Skulk Hollow

Might be higher on the list if I played Skulk Hollow more often. It’s a game where both sides play similarly but differently. Each side has their own objectives as to what they want to do, the Foxen want to take down the guardian, and the guardian might want to take out enough Foxen or maybe put out their tentacles, it depends on the guardian. Nice asymmetrical game with a cool two board system.

10. Claim

Two player trick taking, shouldn’t be the only trick taking on the list, but I haven’t played Fox in the Forest or Fox in the Forest Duet yet. I want to, and I have both on my shelf. But Claim is a very interesting game. You play a hand to build your next hand. And then you play to gain majority in the five different suits. But different suits have different powers. Fun puzzle of a game that you can play a few games in a sitting.

9. The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

I think I’ve played this game at all player counts. Solo isn’t bad, and three isn’t bad, but I like The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game best at two. Why, because there’s little downtime between turns. And also because I know one person who I regularly game with who is as deep, if not deeper, into the Dresden series than I am. So it’s fun to bring that theme to a game that has it pasted onto mechanics in a good way.

8. Star Wars: Rebellion

Star Wars: Rebellion almost missed being put on the list. This is a two player only Original Trilogy Star Wars in a box. You can play with four, but it just splits up everything into two, and there’s not that much to keep track of. The game is a lot of fun because the Empire is trying to track down the Rebel base, and the Rebels are trying to undermine the Empire. I don’t even mind the dice combat in the game. Big box, takes a while to play, but great.

7. Hats

Hats is one of those abstract games that can play more, but it’s so much better at two. It’s about playing cards from your hand down to the table, the Madd Hatter’s table, to collect other hats. So it’s interesting because what you have in your hand won’t be the cards you use to score at the end of the game. It is fine at four, but at two, there is a whole lot more tension in what you do.

6. Ohanami

Ohanami is almost two different games at the different player counts. When you play with three or four, you take what is best for you because you won’t see the hands again too much. At two, you are going to see your starting hand three times. So you get six of the ten cards in it. Now in two players you think about what you want and your opponent might want, take the ones that overlap first, before taking ones that just you might want.

5. Hanamikoji

Two player only game, Hanamikoji is amazing. And really the top six are games I’d always play, and even Hats is one I’d play but only if it’s two player. Hanamikoji has you vying to win favor of Geisha. Either by getting 11 points or the favor of four of the seven Geisha. The game play is amazingly tense as you try and puzzle out what you opponent might have. And the four actions you take all feel like tough decisions.

4. Super Fantasy Brawl

Super Fantasy Brawl I believe can be played with more, but it’s best as a two player head to head skirmish game. This game is about punching your opponents to knock them out, but also completing objectives. I don’t think you can easily win without doing both. Because you worry about only objectives, your opponent will take you out and ruin your plans. Only about taking your opponent out, they’ll be able to maneuver to get objectives.

Plus, the game play is extremely simple. You have three different color actions you can take per round. That corresponds to colors of cards, so you play cards of that color. You have some defensive ones you can use, but if you use those, on your turn you can’t then play that color to take a more offensive action. And there are a lot of characters and I still want more.

3. Marvel Champions: The Card Game

Marvel Champions is a very nice solo game, but I think I prefer it as a two player game. More I wouldn’t want to play with because of downtime. But at two player, it feels like it offers a different depth of strategy and teamwork that you don’t get in solo. And it’s fun to take two super heroes up against a villain and have that team-up feel.

2. Aeon’s End

Aeon’s End is another one where I really like it as a two player game. Even the solo experience is really a two player game. Mainly because as solo you need to control at least two mages. What makes it so good at two players is that you each get two turns to go along with the Nemesis two turns. At four player you’d have each mage go once prepping in round one, and attacking in round two. You get that, but it feels more powerful with two players, though it really isn’t.

1. Dice Throne

Finally, we have Dice Throne. Dice Throne is a game that I love as a two player game, but I think it’s great as a King of a Hill style free for all. It makes sense at two because it’s kind of a Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat battler of a game. Game play is slick with upgrading abilities and then Yahtzee style dice rolling and battling.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of games that are good at two players. For me, these fourteen aren’t always ones that I need to only play at two, but are really strong at two. And I have a number on my shelf to play. I want to get The Inbetween to the table, as well as Seven Wonders Duel, and the previously mentioned Fox in the Forest and Fox in the Forest Duet.

What are some of your favorite two player games?

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Tofu Kingdom, Brewcrafters Travel Card Game, The Mind & Cthulhu Fluxx

I lumped these together. They are all smaller games, I gave them a chance, and while they aren’t bad, I have a number of smaller games that I’m going to pull off the shelf before them. And often that’s why games leave, something like Cthulhu Fluxx was a great gateway game for me, but now I have others.

I think that most people might be surprised by the Mind. My experience with that was just okay at the best. The game with it’s, you can’t share information is fine. But also leads to long chunks of time of people not talking. I wish there was more fun and funny going on for a game that is so simple. The Mind is like Cosmic Encounter for me as well, where it is very group dependent.

Gloom

Gloom is a very fun game. It has transparent cards and you are trying to kill off your family with them having the most miserable lives possible. And you tell stories as you do it. It’s a blast to play, and I haven’t played it since before I was married. I was dating now wife but we were maybe engaged. That’s over 7 years.

So, you can guess why this one is leaving. I just don’t play it often enough, or at all anymore. If someone else has it and pulls it off the shelf to play, I will play it and love it. I might even buy it again at that point. But right now, even though it’s a small game, it opens up room for other small games to try and play.

Werewords

This one came into my collection not that long ago and now it’s leaving my collection. I am always trying to find a second social deduction game that I like. I even watched on Board Game Geeks YouTube channel Werewords played and thought that it’d be it. It’s a game of twenty questions with a traitor, the concept even sounds fun.

But it’s like so many social deduction games, when it comes down to it, you are just guessing. If you don’t guess the word you will take a random stab at whom the traitor is and probably be wrong. If you’re the traitor and the word is guessed, you’ll give a random guess on the seerer unless they were extremely obvious. I want more deduction in my social deduction is what it is, I guess.

Werewords is a solid game, it’s just not for me.

Onirim

This one might surprise people. I like Onirim as a solo game. But it’s going away for three reasons. The first being Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game, then A Gentle Rain – another solo game, and finally, because I own the app. I can still play Onirim, but I’ll do on the app. And there will be much less shuffling.

I know that a lot of people even like the app better because it does all the shuffling. I still think I prefer the physical game, but if I’m going to play a solo game right now, it’s going to be Orchard or A Gentle Rain. They are easier to get out and play, so sorry, Onirim, you’re leaving the collection. Again another really good game and this one is for me, but I just have others to play now.

The Siblings Trouble

This is one that I never actually played. I picked it up because when it was on Kickstarter, I had backed the companies other game, Lift Off! and wanted to back another one of their projects. It’s a kind of RPG like game that is tailored for kids. But it came out at the same time as No Thank You, Evil! A kids RPG that has more support. And I likely would just play D&D with my kid eventually.

Hex Roller

I got this game quite recently, I played it, and I’m selling it. Hex Roller is not a bad roll and write. But it isn’t a game where what you do will change much. The dice rolls will change things up, but the mechanics don’t change. So I’ve played it, and I’m passing it on to someone else.

My knock on Hex Roller is that while the scoring is simple, the teach is not. The rules are a little bit weird for how you take dice and use them. It just teaches harder then a game that doesn’t have that much going on should. I understand that they wanted the game to be clever and give you lots to think about, but it’s just a solid game. Not good enough for me to come back to.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

This is a really fun and goofy game. It is also a story game that has limited replayability. Now, I am not done with the story, so why am I getting rid of it. It’s easy, I know two maybe three people who own it. If I want to play it again or play it the whole way through, I can.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger is a great time. It’s goofy and fun to sit around and play. If you play lighter games, I definitely recommend it. But most likely, like me, you’ll end up selling it once you’re done with the story. The downside is I won’t get much for it, the upside is, someone can play it and enjoy it again.

Blossoms

Blossoms is a two player push your luck game. You are trying to grow flowers and then harvest them at the point that it’ll give you the most points. It’s a pretty little game, though in a larger box than really needed. But it is a two player game, so the question I asked myself, how many two player only games do I need?

The answer didn’t include Blossoms. When I look at my two player games, I would pick Hanamikoji before it, Skulk Hollow, 7 Wonders Duel, Fox in the Forest, Fox in the Forest Duet. All of those I’d play before Blossoms. Blossoms is just a little bit too simple for when I want to play a two player game. But if you have a parent or grandparent who likes more classic feeling games, Blossoms would be great.

Cry Havoc

This is a tough game for me to get rid of. I really like Cry Havoc. This is another situation where I just own other games I’m going to play before it. Cry Havoc is asymmetrical area control. If I want area control that’s pretty complex, Blood Rage. If I want asymmetrical, well I own Root now. Cry Havoc is leaving because I own enough other games that do similar things. And I own enough other games that I’d play before it.

It is a bit of a casualty of my Top 100 that I just wrapped up, actually. When going through the Top 10 and seeing games like Lords of Hellas and Blood Rage, th ose will get played before Cry Havoc. So even with Cry Havoc just missing at 103 and being there last year, it’s time for it to go.

Castle Panic

This is getting bumped because of a future Kickstarter that is coming. It’s also getting bumped because it’s too easy a cooperative game. Now, some of that is that I’m older than the target audience. This is a tower defense game for 10 year old kids or younger. It’s not targeting someone like me. Village Attacks as a tower defense game is.

But this is a game that I win too often. And again, I think that’s with the target age. A 10 year old will want to win more often than they lose. I personally like to lose about 60-70% of the time when playing a cooperative game. In my Top 100 I have Say Bye to the Villains, I have yet to beat that game. I don’t think I’ve lost Castle Panic.

Lift Off!

I just talked about this one, it’s the first game that I backed on Kickstarter. I am greatly tempted to keep this one. I’ve played it a few times but it hasn’t been in years. It’s a fun little game, and I like some of their other games. I still have Skulk Hollow which won’t be leaving anytime soon.

This is one that I am tempted to keep to just play a few more times. It is also a game that isn’t going to come off my shelf all that often. It’s like Castle Panic in that it’s younger focused, not my gaming group, and there’s enough other games I’ll play before it.

Dicecapades!

For a mass market game, Dicecapades is generally a lot of fun. You get goofy things like stacking dice. Or you roll a die and need to do that many push-ups. Or you roll a die and there is trivia. Wait, there is trivia, what does that have to do with dice , the answer, nothing. And that’s why I don’t pull it out anymore.

Everything else in the game is fun, but you need to answer a trivia question on a random area that is determined by a die roll. If you get it wrong, you stay and then do it again next turn. Meanwhile, everyone else is doing goofy fun things, until they get stuck on trivia as well. And if I roll sports before you roll movies, because that’s what we know best, I get going faster just based off of luck.

It is a mass market party game, it is supposed to be lucky. But it’s just not that fun when you get to trivia. Remove the trivia from the game, I’d probably keep the game. It’s one that I can play with cousins and non-gamers. But with trivia, it’s annoying. If I want to do trivia, I own Wits & Wagers.

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Now, this is the tricky one, and it might stay. I want to play this game. The intro scenario to teach you the game, I’ve played it twice. But it’s a campaign game, and it’s a campaign game with an app before apps were common. So the app itself isn’t great. Not bad, but not great. And I don’t have a group to play this game. So it’s a lot of work to play solo.

If I had a group, I’d play it. I might even play it solo, if I go through the introductory scenario again. But am I going to do that when I have Isofarian Guard coming sometime, Destinies coming that can be played solo, Middara, Roll Player Adventures, Solomon Kane, Deep Madness and more? I think it might leave like Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth did. Not because it is a bad game, it isn’t, it’s a lot of fun, but because I own so many.

16 Games of Shelf Space

It’s a tough list to cut. I look at Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Cry Havoc, Onirim, and Gloom especially, and I really enjoy all of those games. But the question is, will I play them? Or am I just keeping them on my shelf because I like the idea of getting back to them sometime?

I think it’s more the latter than I’d actually get back to the games. And some of them, Gloom in particular, that depends on the group. If you like a tell a story, it works well, if you just play the cards, the game is fine. So, all of these are leaving, probably over the weekend, to get traded into my FLGS. And I’m looking at a few games, Escape The Room and Star Wars Unlock, that I need to play to then free up more space.

Which one, if you could get one of these games I’m trading in, would you want to play most?

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Numbers

A’s

B’s

Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate

So the next one will be another game in the same family, but I wanted to keep them separate because while I like Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate and feel like it gets some things better, I prefer the other one. This one is a semi-cooperative (or fully cooperative) exploration game where you are taking Dungeons and Dragons type characters through Baldur’s Gate, a town, and exploring, finding items, omens, and events. Eventually there’ll be enough omens and a poor roll will happen and a haunt will begin. This will either be fully cooperative, 20% chance, or one person will be the traitor. The game changes to trying to stop whatever bad thing is happening to Baldur’s Gate.

Status: Played

Betrayal at House on the Hill and Legacy

This is the original, plus the newest all lumped into one section. I really need Covid to be over enough to get Betrayal Legacy to the table. But I’ve played the regular game a lot, and I really like it. It’s a janky, sometimes broken game, but I love it, because it’s a wonderful horror game that feels sometimes like a real horror film as you explore the creepy house and wait for the haunt to happen, and sometimes it feels like you’re the Scooby Gang in a bad horror movie because of how weird things are. There have been some scenarios that haven’t worked well, but most of the time people end up having fun with it, and I’m really excited to try Betrayal Legacy.

Betrayal at House on the Hill: Played
Betrayal Legacy: To Be Played

Blood Rage

This game was one of the earlier area control games that I played, Risk was the first, but most other games I had played up to that point from more modern board games weren’t area control. I love Blood Rage because it has area control, but that’s less of a thing for it. Instead, it’s all about figuring out that combo of upgrades, fighting, and quests that are going to get you the most action points and the most points overall so you can win the game. It feels like it should be a very confrontational game, but it always plays less like that and is really interesting as to what strategy you end up picking. This game also sells itself well too on the table because it just looks interesting and it looks as epic as it is. I like that it’s a game that is epic in a reasonable play time without being a campaign as well. I have the Gods of Asgard expansion that I need to play with sometime.

Status: Played

Blossoms

This is a primarily two player push your luck flower game. I picked it up because it looked simple and cute, and it definitely is that. The game you are basically pushing your luck to see how much you can grow your flowers before you cut them. The taller they are, the more points they are worth, but if you draw one of the flower types that you don’t have planted and can’t plant, then you bust and it’s the other person’s turn. So do you cut a decently tall flower or risk pushing just a bit further but also risk not cutting a flower on your turn. It’s an interesting choice that I think works well, it would work less well if the game took longer, it says 30 minutes, but I think it should go even faster than that.

Status: Played

Boomerang

This one you might have seen recently in a Point of Order. This is a draft and write game where you are drafting cards to fill in spots on your map of Australia to score points. It’s pretty standard roll and write in what it does on the sheet, but the drafting of cards means that you can be strategic, taking a card that might score someone else more points if there’s nothing that great for you. But because I just got this in, I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, of course, but it’s a roll and write style, and I tend to enjoy those a lot.

Status: To Be Played

Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game

This was a game that I originally played someone else’s copy while I was getting into the board game hobby. I liked it because it has some interesting strategy and I liked old computer games like this one portrays where you are going through a dungeon, fighting/dealing with whatever is in that room and going onto the next one. This is a twist on that in board game form, and one where you aren’t the heroes, but you’re the boss monster at the end of the row trying to create a dungeon that can do enough damage to take out heroes. My one knock on this game and that keeps it from being played that often is that it has “take that” elements to it. By that I mean that you might have something planned that’ll work out well for you and I can with a card just be like, “nope, not happening” and I might get more cards like that than you do or I might play them all on you so it doesn’t seem as fun. But one thing I really do like is that you are attracting different types of heroes, and the person who has the most of a symbol in their dungeon gets that type of hero, and you know which heroes are coming. But you might not be able to defeat that hero and too many wounds, you die and are out of the game. So you kind of have to get into the head of your opponents at times and create ties so that you don’t take damage.

Status: Played

Brew Crafters; Travel Card Game

I honestly don’t know a ton about this one, but I do want to play it. It was given to me as a gift, and it just hasn’t gotten to the table yet. But it’s about brewing beer and as a fan of both brewing and drinking beer, I am interested in the theme. It looks like it should be a fun little game, but I need to get it to the table.

Status: To Be Played

Bring Your Own Book

This was a game that Kickstartered pretty early on, I think it might have been game 3-4 that I backed. It is a party game where there’s a person who is “it” like in most party games who is going to pick their favorite. Everyone else brings (picks) a book to use. The person who is it reads a prompt and then everyone else has some time to dig through their book and try and find a sentence or part of a sentence for the response. There’s a limited amount of time, and who knows what book you decided to bring, so sometimes you can find the perfect thing, or thematic thing, and sometimes it is a dry bit of technical reading that is hilarious. This game suffers like the Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity types that you need to know your audience. How do I tailor my response for the person who is it. But like Stipulations, which I enjoy, this game changes, you might will eventually see the same prompts, but a line from a fantasy book versus a biography, versus a D&D adventure book versus a technical manual, those are all going to be really different.

As always, the two questions, which is your favorite from the B’s, and what, based off of this and my previous part of the list, should I look at getting or playing for the letter B?

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