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Recommendation Requests should be posted to our Daily Game Recommendations threads. Reddit is a great place to pick peoples' brains and get game suggestions, but we get a lot of recommendation requests, so much so that we have the "Daily Game Recs"-threads dedicated for them. Historically, almost all well formatted questions in the Daily thread get answers. If you're looking for further suggestions, we recommend taking a look at our growing list of Recommendation Roundups. There's also the What Should I Get (WSIG) section on our wiki for a more general list of common recommendations.

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Splendor Duel!

r/Hive

Boop! 

Cats and kittens never go wrong.

My wife and I play Wingspan frequently. It’s a really good two player game.

So, my husband and I usually play just us so i would recommend Lost ruins of Arnak as strategic one that won’t last more than 90min. Also, for a quicker game, that will last around 30 min i recommend Quacks of Quilldenburg. It’s really fun and fast game. We also play Ark Nova, but the game is around 150min when you get the hang of it but it is also fun game.

Your submission was removed by a moderator for the following reason(s):

Recommendation Requests should be posted to our Daily Game Recommendations threads. Reddit is a great place to pick peoples' brains and get game suggestions, but we get a lot of recommendation requests, so much so that we have the "Daily Game Recs"-threads dedicated for them. Historically, almost all well formatted questions in the Daily thread get answers. If you're looking for further suggestions, we recommend taking a look at our growing list of Recommendation Roundups. There's also the What Should I Get (WSIG) section on our wiki for a more general list of common recommendations.

(If you believe this post was removed in error you can request a re-review by messaging the mods.)

I hate how they shut these threads down.

Patchwork.

Hive: two-player, head to head abstract strategy. Very thinky.

Nova Luna: a less intense puzzle, but always fun.

Splendor: engine building card game that moves from two to three to four people effortlessly. (Note: not Splendor Duel)

Ingenious: another abstract that goes from two to three to four players effortlessly. Hex dominoes with colors/shapes where your lowest score •is• your score.

Targi: An x-y coordinate game for two with set collection.

If he likes abstracts, all of the Project GIPF games are great. (Personal favorites: YINSH & LYNGK)

Friends of mine over at Meeple Mountain like Air, Land, and Sea.

I just did this research in the last few weeks referencing /r/boardgames and I ended up grabbing Jaipur and Lost Cities to play with someone new to board games. Basic enough to pick up, but still complex enough to be in the "intermediate" range.

Hate to say it...but Pandemic is really fun! You work together against the game. Other more simple games I’ve enjoyed are Raptor and Patchwork.

Cribbage, many card games, ticket to ride, blockus, battleship, scrabble. Probably Clue would be ok? I've also seek Facebook ads for murder mystery games you can order and solve as a date night. And don't underestimate the value of a simple (or not so simple) floor puzzle.

I’ve played one called 7 Wonders: Duel. It’s a two player version of the multi-player game, 7 Wonders. Once you learn the rules it takes about 30 minutes to play a game.

Patchwork is a really fun 1v1. Cute aesthetic and a nice bit of "easy to learn, hard to master"

Can't believe no one's said Hive yet! Such a fun little game. Perfect to take anywhere too, there's a pocket version and they're little tiles so they can get wet, perfect for a bar! A good abstract strategy game.

My husband and I play board games roughly every weekend after our kids go to bed. At the moment we are rotating between tiny epic galaxys, lords of waterdeep, dice city or gloomhaven. Gloomhaven depends on when our soon to be 2yr old goes to sleep. Setup takes a little while.

Can’t believe no one has mentioned Lost Cities yet. My wife and I also love Roll for the Galaxy and Welcome to at 2 players.

I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who did not enjoy Twilight Struggle. I played it twice with my husband, and honestly we just didn’t have fun playing it. We both tend to like more complex games too, but TS just was more work than fun.

Duel never gets old. The variation in how the cards get laid out means that no two games play the same way.

Dice City is a lot like Machi Koro but imo much better. There are pros and cons to each. Dice City is more fun/interesting but has downtime between turns especially with first timers.

Haven’t played that but I’ll be looking into it now. Thanks for the suggestion! I was looking at 1960 the other day, that looked like a good 2 player game as well.

Chess

Chess

Battleship, checkers, jenga, chess, spoons

Caper Europe

Backgammon is a personal favorite.

Patchwork is pretty simple. Lots of fun. Cheap.

Arboretum is also decent 2 player, but has option for more, which is nice.

Yinsh, Jaipur, Mr. Jack, and Hive are my go to 2 player games

Hive is great - super simple to learn/teach, with deep strategy.

For abstract games, Azul, Yinsh, Tzaar. For head to head card games, Hanamikoji, Jaipur, or Patchwork.

None of these games require any reading.

7 Wonders Duel is great if you want to try a medium-light difficulty game.

For the record, my favorite card game is Lost Cities.

Patchwork, Jaipur, Splendor Duel, Welcome To, 7 Wonders Duel.

Have fun!

Just for two you can't beat Patchwork and Jaipur when it comes to simple games with lots of replayability and no text. I'd also recommend Calico and Cascadia which are for 1-4 players and play great with just two.

Richard Garfield, the inventor of MTG, helped a game come to life called Mindbug. It‘s a funny and excellent 2p game, works like MTG since you‘re summoning creatures fighting each other. It‘s affordable, easy to learn and every card is hilariously strong. The unique twist: Every player has two Mindbugs. Twice a game you can overtake one creature your opponent plays. I love it. You have 3 health points only, so one session is quite short, but still deep enough to try different combinations in your 10card deck (out of .. uh, around 40, I guess.)

Look into Star Realms and Dominion. They're both deck builders so the mechanics will be pretty familiar to your GF, but they're self-contained (IE, you buy one box and maybe a few expansions) so it isn't nearly as expensive as MtG. They're also both great with 2.

Lost Cities, 7 Wonders Duel, Patchwork, Jaipur, Hive are some of the better 2-player only games. We also like a lot Carcassone, Century: Golem Edition, Star Realms, Dominion and San Juan at 2.

I second Wingspan Asia!! This is an expansion but you only have to buy Wingspan Asia it has its own 2 player game inside it (you do not need to buy the og game but def recommend it for more than 2 players) I have all the expansions and most times my wife and I just play Asia because it is better 2 player.

Radlands is great. But the rule book is damned irritating.

I would also recommend a little game called Air, Land and Sea. It is a GREAT little card game that only needs like 18 cards that is just REALLY good at 2 player.

for me probably the best 2 player game is 7wonders Duel

A very good more casual game is Wingspan Asia

If she's that much into tcg you could consider Star Realms (scifi setting and better game) or Hero Realms (fantasy setting worse balancing still cool to play) - they are both deck building duel games. Me - a former yugioh, magic, hearthstone, gwent, etc player - loves them. But they are way more casual than the big tcgs are

there are many more good 2 player options but it depends on what you guys like

This was my pick as well. It has that same MTG feel of dueling and the shared draw deck is very cool.

Star Wars the Deck-Building game is different (deck-builder) but has troops and bases and all kinds of fun mechanics for buy and attacking cards.

I love Dale and I adore how culling is not just an option but imbricated in the win condition (first player who creates a certain number of stalls by culling cards win).

As a fellow past MTG player (this is still the game I love the most but I don't like the business model and my friends are not really interested in playing again), there are two games that are able to replicate the excitement I had when playing Magic.

I would say to take a look at Spirit Island if you haven't already. What I liked the most in magic was building my deck by looking through all cards to find interesting synergy. I get a similar feeling in Spirit Island due how asymmetric each spirit is but also due to how each power card is unique and there's a lot of them! Each time you have to draw and choose 1, you have your own and the other's spirits to take into account plus the state of the board.

The other game (I prefer playing at 3 tho) is Dune Imperium. You are able to build your deck along the game too and the intrigue cards being a tension to the game comparable to what instant in Magic are able to, since they can bring unexpected results . For instance, "I think he wants to go to that spot but he's still missing one water, I'll go next round instead of this one" BAM! He plays an intrigue card giving him the water he was missing and goes to the spot you wanted. Or there's a lot of these cards that can have an effect on the conflict phase at the end of the turn.

Carcassonne!

Very very easy to pick up and play. You can slowly add on expansions whenever your ready to make it more complicated.

Games take 15-45 minutes. I know that may sound long but here's the entire turn order:

Draw a tile

Place the tile

Assign a meeple to it or dont

End turn

Very very simple.

Do you want 2 players only games, or do you want games that plays well with 3 or more players also?

My two favorites would be:

Undo (Cherry Blossom festival, ect) Adventure (Monochrome Inc, ect).

Both are cooperative and can be played with 2-4 people. With 2 or 3 people I like cooperative better than competative games. It's worth noting both are series and have multiple titles. I've listed one title (the last one of each I played) as it will help you finding the series. That said, you can start with any of them so if you're interested pick the one that most appeals to you.

Undo - someone is dead but you are the time weaves. You can go back in time and try to prevent the death. Working together you pick which points to go to (cards you flip over) and with the information you have make a choice on what to do. You have to discuss and work together to puzzle out what happened. 

Adventure - these are long, 2 or 3 nights worth long. They're scenarios where you pick a character and investigate through the story line. What choices you make affect how the game goes. Fair warning, there is a lot of reading with these ones but they're fun, creative and entertaining. Think of them as a role play adventure mixed with a point and click game. My friends and I always end up laughing when playing these.

Azul is a pleasant strategy game that works well with 2 players

For two player, I much prefer co-op games, where you're both working together to defeat the board, rather than working against each other.

My fav co-op games (Pandemic, Forbidden Island, Zombicide etc) probably work best with more players, but because it co-op you can easily control two "players" each to get four-player gameplay. Definitely check out co-op games!