10 Terrific TWO PLAYER Board Games | Collection Starter

just the two of us we can make it if we try just the two of us and i beat you idiot well this feels like a business savvy if bleak time for a list like this feels like i'm trying to sell a book on how to take care of your cat during a lion attack it might help a little but still sad panda during these waves of lockdowns and restrictions there are a lot of couples slash roommates slash family units not lucky enough to have a gaming group within their covert bubble for a lot of us two is pretty much the ceiling on players for most board games at least ones that aren't either played with an online simulator which is about as fiddly as trying to juggle marbles with chopsticks or a pile of games played over zoom which has all the awkward intensity of a fun boss trying to jazz up your redundancy still board gaming remains the best thing in a bad world and if you're looking for something that isn't chest to while away the hours this is a collection starter and this time we're looking at ten terrific two player games number ten jaipur trading goods and hand management are two phrases that feature on a lot of people's list of things said by people they won't have sex with and yes fair but also bloody hellboard gaming loves to trade some goods and manage some hands if you're not swapping beer for wood and saving cards for one big combo are you even playing a board game am i right if this all sounds like your kind of thing then you need to check out jaipur which is about trading goods and hand management and also camels lovely camels if you are a trader at a market in jaipur capital of indian state rajasthan you want to buy goods represented by these disks some of which are more valuable than others you can buy the goods with cards but you get more points if you buy in bulk but also the amount of points that each good is worth decreases in value if your opponent buys them before you which leads us to the central dilemma at the heart of the game do you bide your time swap and save cards so you can spend big in one go or do you buy little and often and try and snatch the most precious goods first it's a watertight little game risky tense you feel like you're scraping your elbows on the sides of the game all the time and also you can trade camels and some camels have little pandas in their bags and what are you made of stone number nine fugitive or catch me if you can the game or i suppose the fugitive the game anyway this is a wonderful little gem from tim fowlers and ace artist ryan goldsbury who channels that particular 50s and 60s era art better than anyone since darwin cook god rest him fugitive is a game of cat and mouse bluffing and deduction one of you is a fugitive and one of you is the marshall the fugitive starts at card zero and has to get to card 42 in order to win however they can only travel to other cards which have a number within three of the last number on the last card they played if they can they play the card face down and over time this creates a trail of face down breadcrumbs which the marshal has to try and guess and follow on their go the masher has to try and work out all the cards visited by the fugitive using just the right balance of deduction and guesswork if the marshal is able to turn over all of the fugitives face down cards by guessing them correctly they win it may take a bit of thought to wrap your head around but i haven't played games more tense than fugitive as the net closes around the runaway as the marshal agonizes over numbers as the final escape seems only moments away it's real head in your hand stuff it is such good design number eight star realms star realms is a deck building game we'll talk more about that type of game another day but it boils down to this you start off with a hand of cards that's weaker than an inbred chin but after buying a whole bunch of cards over the course of the game you end up with a hand that's powerful enough to wedgy god such is the case with star realms and look how tiny this box is but inside is a whopper of a game you start with a hand of cards that luke skywalker would call a piece of junk but after making special modifications buying bases that produce more money that you can use to buy more powerful ships which you can then chain to create humbling volleys of damage suddenly your hand has got it where it counts you start at a certain amount of health and basically whoever can punch their opponents the most with fists made of spaceships will win but the joy of the game comes from shopping shopping and shopping and also building the perfect engine of production and pain and unleashing at just the right time since it only takes 20 minutes you'll want to do it again and again and also look how small this game is you can take it anywhere take it to the pub take it on a train take it to your friend's bris take it anywhere it's brilliant number seven onitama a lot of what we're gonna do here at phenomena it's basically boils down to have you heard of this well-known game that's a bit boring then play this game you haven't heard of which is like it but more fun to that point have you heard of chess onytama is like that but so much more fun that chess should start hurriedly putting together a retirement plan each player takes control of a sensei and therefore students who all look like ang the last airbender before his nose job each player has two cards each one allowing any of their pieces to perform a certain movement if you land on an opponent's piece it's removed from the board if you take your opponent's sensei or get your sensei to the other side of the board you win simple but what makes onitama such a clever little bastard is that when you play a card to make that move that card is spent and replaced by the free card in the middle now the card you just played goes to the middle and after your opponent's next turn they will get that card and so on you go the same five cards swapping between you on an endless cycle trying desperately to think two moves ahead of your opponent attacking without leaving yourself lethally exposed to the other two angs you didn't even know were there it's like chess but condensed to its most fun element and playable in a fraction of the time number six hive have you heard of chess hive is like that but more fun honestly between the two of them onitama and hive bury chess and the shallowest of graves but while onitama is the more exciting version of chess combat and capture hive is the more exciting version of chess movement and placement you know how in chess every piece moves differently and that creates this crazy mess of potential pathways for a player to decipher hive is like that but made of bugs hooray question mark you play with these insectiles which like me are satisfyingly chunky you lay these dummy thick boys down and like the king in chest one of your insects will be the queen bee you have to protect her at all costs because of some nebulous honey-centric bug matriarchy and here's the danger if your queen ever gets surrounded on all sides by other tiles including your own then you've lost which means you have to keep her on the move all while trying to surround your opponent's queen and every insect moves differently grasshoppers can leap over rows of other tiles beetles can climb on top of other tiles meaning those tiles underneath them can't move spiders can only move in groups of three it's a marvelous little puzzle as this hive twists and shifts before your very eyes it is an ugly bug ball number five patchwork have you heard of quilting patchwork is like that but without the terrible loneliness i kid but it's a very very good game it's by over rosenberg who's somewhat famous in board gaming for both designing complex component-heavy games that fit in increasingly bigger heavier and more complicated boxes and also really liking tetris seriously to put it in perspective you may like your child i may like corgis but uva rosenberg loves tetris he's designed like eight games based in some way about fitting shapes together and patchwork is him his best in this game buttons are currency i know right it's whimsical as balls you spend buttons to buy pieces which is slot into your little quilt board if you stack them right together you can earn more buttons to buy bigger better pieces but be careful because if you leave gaps that will cost you in the end it's tetris with shopping and honestly that might not sound thrilling but you've never known true happiness until you find just the right piece to fill a gap in your quilt and oh god how is saying sentences like that out loud my job number four seven wonders duel a serious game for serious gamers now again we prefer to overload our list with lighter games because they're always more accessible to newcomers but there's always room for at least one chunky strategy game each week seven wonders duel is the two-player version of seven wonders a proper classic gentleman of the board gaming scene but somehow this spin-off is even better than the original like frasier and i say that bracing myself for an onslaught from cheers stand the most vicious and bloodthirsty fandom on the internet in seven wonders duel you're building an empire you buy stuff that produces stuff to let you buy better stuff you know board games in a lovely little trick the cards you can buy are arranged like this and you can only purchase cards that aren't covered by others meaning you have to be careful what you get because it might uncover a card your opponent desperately wants tight tricky and cruel like your dad is the game's made even more wrigley by the fact there are three ways to win you can make a mad rush and try and end the game early with a massive army or collect enough different scientific symbols or just wait it out and win on point very often you'll have to try your hand at all three just to close off your opponent making every single move vitally important number three santorini okay so listen santorini can actually be played with four and three players let me finish but it's best with two it should only really be played with two and okay yes it's cheating but also play santorini and tell me it's not one of the greatest two-player games in the world it's set in halcyon days of ancient greece with goddesses growing out of the foam of castrated primordial sky gods what a time to be a live hashtag blessed in santorini named after the greek island with its lovely blue dome buildings you control a pair of human workers each turn one of your workers can move to any adjacent unoccupied space and then build in any adjacent unoccupied space if you build on a space that's already been built on you raise it up a level and your workers can also move up one level at a time if you get either your workers onto the third level of any building you win simple but your opponent will be moving and building as well they're trying to block you off top off buildings with a blue dome so they can't be climbed on whilst also racing up levels towards the heavens themselves the result is a jumble of scuppered plans and desperate distractions like 3d connect four and that's before you add in god powers each game each player is a god with a power that totally breaks the game's rules meaning no two games of santorini are ever the same number two lost cities have you and your significant other planned a holiday this year that you can no longer take then play lost cities and replicate going on a lush dangerous expedition with all the tension one-on-one ship and frustration that your holiday was guaranteed to have anyway in lost cities you have a hand of cards of different colors representing one of the five expeditions you can go on numbered two to ten you can play cards of any expedition you want and stack them up as long as you always play a higher number than you previously played when the game is over you count up all the points you've made in each expedition only problem is adventuring is expensive am i right magellan hashtag new world problems each expedition will automatically cost you 20 points so you have to make more than that on each one to come out ahead sure you could go on every mission and rack up points in each one but if you don't make over 20 points on any of them then all of them will give you negative points which let me check my big book of adventuring economics isn't great this turns what looks like competitive solitaire into a tense game of risk management gambling and screwing your opponent out of cards they desperately need all as the game speeds towards its end and you just want to play one more time because you'll definitely get it right next time and number one unmatched so unmatched can also be played with three and four players but again it's better with two and it's also my game of the year so i politely ask you to do one in unmatched you play one of a number of famous characters from folklore myth literature pop culture like bigfoot medusa dracula sherlock holmes sinbad jurassic park raptors and also bruce lee for some reason each character has their own special powers and their own deck of drop dead gorgeous cards you dart around the map and you biff each other that's it's a light simple combat game but what makes it so wonderful is that the mechanics that make each character play differently so perfectly match what their character is famous for sherlock is weak in a fight but uses clues and well-timed peaks at your opponent's hand to get the advantage raptors are weak individually but if those clever girls surround you you're done for robin hood has physical limitations but is brilliant from a distance and has an army of henchmen at his disposal bruce lee is a henchman demolishing machine and can zip away from you biding his time until one big combo of blows kills you in a single turn each fight is special because each combination of characters with their crazy powers creates a unique puzzle to be solved and honestly i can't stop playing it look at these minis i actually took up painting minis because of how beautiful they were endlessly replayable my favorite game right now in the field of two-player games unmatched is well unmatched and that's our list what are your favorite two player games let us know in the comments please like and share this video around and also please subscribe to phenomena for more excellent lists and explain videos deep dives into classics and always remember to get on board

Channel: No Rolls Barred

Views: 114,167

Rating: 4.9074593 out of 5

Keywords: board games, board games 2020, board games review, board game, tabletop, tabletop games, top 10 board games, games, best board games, game, boardgamegeek, board game geek, top ten board games, find board games, game news, most popular games, most popular board games, best games, hottest board games, best board games 2020, hottest board games 2020, top board games 2020, popular board games, boardgames

Id: GGsz1oocD1o

Length: 12min 21sec (741 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 31 2020