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As Valentine’s Day approaches, what better date night could there be than a romantic evening of two-player games? Here’s our list of the top games for two, but don’t blame us if your date is a sore loser!
Duelosaur Island
This hand-management game allows you to live in your own Jurassic Park world, where your goal is to run a successful dinosaur theme park, without letting your dinosaurs run riot and gobble up the visitors.
The main event is collecting and creating your dinosaurs, which will draw in visitors to your park but will require you to invest in top notch security to keep everyone safe. To do that you’ll need things like DNA and money, which you can gather from picking up the chunky and colourful dice that have different resources on each die face.
As well as dinosaurs, there are attractions you’ll want in your park, such as food stands, merchandise stands and rides. These attractions bring you money and other bonuses which you’ll need for maintaining your park.
Dinosaur fans will adore it. Even the merchandise and food stands available to buy have excellent attention to detail (eg. Clever Grill). The main drawback of this game is how much you need to stress about maintaining enough security to keep your park safe - but at the same time this element is pretty thematic. It also comes with a gorgeous velvet dice bag that every game should have.
Hive
Hive is easy to grasp, but harder to master. You have a selection of insects that move in different ways, with your aim being to surround your opponent's Queen Bee. Pieces move in a way that makes sense - grasshoppers hop, ants swarm. It’s lovely.
Games last around 20 mins, so it works well as a palette-cleanser game between longer games, or you can play a few rounds back-to-back.
This game is dinky and comes in a handy zip bag, making it nicely portable. And its sturdy, pleasantly-weighted pieces make it perfect for all environments. Unlike playing cards, the pieces won’t get stuck on a grubby pub table, and their weightiness means they won’t blow away if you want to play it on a picnic blanket outside.
Odin’s Ravens
In this Viking-themed game, players try to race their ravens across a landscape of fields, snowy mountains and lakes to beat their opponent.
In the first edition copy, over multiple rounds each player has their own path laid out ahead of them, which they must cross by picking up the right cards and laying obstacles for their opponent. If you find yourself stuck with unhelpful cards, you can still gain points by banking them at the side, in an area called the Magic Way.
The updated version has the same premise, but players are racing on the same track across a longer landscape.
There’s a nice mixture of strategy and luck to this game. You’ll find yourself cursing the terrible combination of cards in your hand, before coming up with crafty ways to make those cards work for you, to creep your way along that beautiful treacherous path to victory.
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: Jack the Ripper & West End Adventures
For a complete change of pace, the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective games are a real treat. The game comes with a series of scenarios and gorgeous game materials, which you’ll use to try to solve murder mysteries set in Sherlock’s London.
You’ll use a map of London, newspaper reports, and a directory of characters to investigate a murder, deciding which locations or people you want to visit, and which clues to follow up or dismiss as red herrings.
You won’t necessarily be trying to find out who the murderer was, but will need to pay close attention to where the crime took place, what the weapon might be, and which suspects can be ruled out. As well as establishing the facts of the case, you’ll be trying to beat Sherlock Holmes, by working things out without following up more clues than he has. You’ll soon learn that given Sherlock’s genius, this is nigh-on impossible, and it’s not a game you should expect to ‘win’ in that respect. But feeling stupid has never been so much fun. This game is more about the journey you go on, the deep discussions you’ll have about what to do next, and the excitement you’ll feel when you’re sure you’ve cracked it.
Wingspan
This is not technically a two-player game. However, having played it both in a group and as a two, I have come to love it more as a two-player. Games that work for bigger groups can often work well for two, because there’s less waiting around to take your turn.
In Wingspan players seek to collect birds to gain points, and to meet their own particular bonus conditions, as well as trying to win each individual round where they will need certain types of birds. It’s an engine-builder game, so to build the birds you want, you’ll need to pick up the right food for those birds, and gain extra points by laying eggs on those cards.
The artwork is stunning, better than any other game I've seen. It comes with delightful pastel-coloured eggs which look like they must be made out of sugar. The dice-rolling birdbox is a nice touch, though in all honesty, it could be a bit sturdier. And, for the BIRD game geeks, each card has a fact about the bird on that card! What more can you want?
What two-player games would you put on your list? Let us know!