Going out is great if you are okay with people, traffic, potholes and all the other frustrations that come with leaving your home. Sometimes the best evenings are spent with loved ones at home, eating takeaways and playing board games.
However, when it comes to something like Valentine’s Day, it’s not like you want to call up your friends and have them crash your date night, so we here at NAG have put together a list of our favourite board games that can be enjoyed with just two players across various game types and genres.
Regardless of if your significant other hasn’t got much experience with board games, if they’re a hardcore Dungeons & Dragons player or if they enjoy rolling the dice and seeing how it goes – there is a game on this list for everyone. Thank us later.
Radlands
The Apocalypse Has Never Looked Better
Players: 2
You’ll enjoy it if: You enjoy competitive card games and a post-apocalyptic theme.
Radlands is a competitive, duelling card game about identifying fiercely powerful card synergies. Players act as the leader of their post-apocalyptic group of survivors in a tooth-and-nail fight to protect their three camps from a vicious rival tribe. If all of them are destroyed, you lose the game.
The primary resource in the game is water. You will spend it to play people and events and to use the abilities of cards you already have on the table. People protect your camps and provide useful abilities, while events are powerful effects that take time to pay off.
Both players draw cards from the same deck, and to win, you must manage your cards and water wisely. Radlands is, simply put, fantastic. From the art to the mechanics, everything about this game is utterly addictive.
If you’re in the market for a great two-player game that is fast-paced and super engaging, then this is the game for you.
Where you can find it locally: Meeps and Veeps
The Initiative
It’s Like Being Rewarded For Being Smart
Players: 1-4
You’ll enjoy it if: You enjoy cracking codes and solving puzzles hidden in plain sight.
If I tell you that the only game I’ve ever played that gave me that “mind-blown” reaction is The Initiative, I wouldn’t be exaggerating. The Initiative is a unique cooperative board game of story, strategy, and code-breaking.
Players take on the role of teenagers in 1994 who has found a mysterious board game called “The Key”. Not only will they play The Key, but players will help the teens through a pivotal chapter of their lives by following a series of missions linked together via an interactive comic book.
The game’s campaign is broken into several chapters, each taking 30-60 minutes to complete and each starting with you reading a page of the comic book. The story advances even if players fail a mission, but winning may provide a reward in the future. Each chapter builds on the knowledge and story from previous chapters, weaving narrative, code-breaking, and mystery into one thrilling game experience.
I won’t go into more details for fear of spoiling what shouldn’t be spoiled, but know if you enjoy cracking codes, this game will blow you away.
Where you can find it locally: Meeps & Veeps
Fort
Because What’s Better Than Friends, Toys, Pizza and A Fort?
Players: 2-4
You’ll enjoy it if: You enjoy deck-building games but also want something with a more lighthearted and fun tone.
Fort is essentially a card game about building forts and following friends. Players take on the role of a kid, and like many kids, they want to grow their circle of friends, collect pizza and toys, and build the most fabulous fort.
By doing this cool stuff, you’ll score victory points; at the end of the game, the player with the most victory points wins. Fort is a great game, it’s easy to start playing, and the art is enough to draw people in. But the magic lies in the game’s deck management system that, while easy to pick up, requires focus and forethought to master.
Where you can find it locally: Meeps & Veeps
Cuphead: Fast Rolling Dice Game
Like The Video Game, But Somehow Even More Frustrating
Players: 1-4
You’ll enjoy it if: You enjoyed playing the Cuphead game but thought it needed to be more frustrating.
Cuphead is the most straightforward game to pick and play on this list. It’s a fast-action, cooperative dice game where players must roll dice to defeat iconic bosses. And that’s it, using cards and dice, Cuphead: Fast Rolling Dice Game emulates the side-scrolling, run-and-gun excitement of the video game, and players need to work together to be quick and agile to avoid the attacks and defeat the bosses to win.
There are few games in my collection as adrenaline-pumping, fast-paced and utterly frustratingly fun as Cuphead: Fast Rolling Dice Game. But be warned, if luck-based games or dice rolling isn’t for you, you should scroll on by because those two elements make up the entire game. And it’s glorious.
Where you can find it locally: Meeps & Veeps
Chronicles of Crime
Because There Is No Rush Quite Like Solving Crimes Together
Players: 1-4
You’ll enjoy it if: You enjoy the thrill of puzzle-solving and deduction.
Chronicles of Crime is a cooperative game of crime investigation, mixing an app, a board game and a touch of Virtual Reality. Players can play different scenarios and solve various crime stories using the same physical components.
Players start the app, choose the scenario they want to play, and follow the story. The goal is to catch the killer of the current case in the shortest time possible. Each component has a unique QR code, which will activate and trigger different clues and stories depending on the scenario selected.
Chronicles of Crime is a lighter detective game than the other one on our list, but it’s just as engaging and fun. The game also encourages teamwork as players will naturally find themselves taking certain parts of the game upon themself and working together to beat the ever-ticking clock.
Where you can find it locally: Meeps & Veeps
Descent: Legends of the Dark
It’s like D&D But Without Someone Having To Be the DM
Players: 1-4
You’ll enjoy it if: You enjoy playing roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons, but you’re not all that keen on the roleplaying part and needing someone to DM.
If you’re planning on playing only one game from this list, let it be Descent: Legends of the Dark. Forge your legend with friends as you adventure across the vibrant fantasy realm of Terrinoth in the cooperative dungeon-crawling board game Descent: Legends of the Dark.
Powered by an integrated companion app, Descent: Legends of the Dark puts you in the role of a budding hero with their own playstyle and abilities. You’ll begin an unexpected adventure with your unlikely companions — an adventure told across the sixteen quests of the “Blood and Flame” campaign. Throughout your campaign, you’ll face undead lurking in the mists, demonic barbarians stalking the wilds, and even more terrifying threats.
If you’ve ever wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons randomly but don’t feel like going through the effort of trying to arrange for the group to get together, then this is perfect – all of the fun, none of the group management.
Where you can find it locally: Meeps & Veeps
Cryptid: Urban Legends
Bigfoot Saw Me, But Nobody Believes Him
Players: 2
You’ll enjoy it if: You enjoy the thrill of classic games like Checkers or Chess but you’re looking for a more modern look and feel.
Cryptid: Urban Legends is exclusively a two-player game, much like the old-school games many grew up on. Also, like the game of days passed, it’s simple to explain and understand but highly complex to master.
Players take on the role of either a determined scientist manipulating heat, movement, and sonic sensors to scan the city to capture the cryptid that walks the city, or they are the cryptid, snaking through shadows and back alleys of the metropolis, eliminating all evidence of their existence as they go, desperately avoiding capture.
Cryptid: Urban Legends is a high-stakes cat-and-mouse chase that requires players to use ingenuity and foresight to come out on top.
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective
It’s like being the detective you were always meant to be
Players: 1-8
You’ll enjoy it if: You enjoy watching mystery movies or crime shows and spend time trying to solve the mystery before it is revealed to you.
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is hard, unlike many other games on this list. It’s really hard. It’s also not a board game. Instead, it presents players with a mystery to solve, and it’s up to them to trace the threads of evidence through the byways and mansions of nineteenth-century London. Think of it as a choose-your-own-adventure book, but for adults.
Players will interview suspects, search the newspapers for clues, and gather the facts to find a solution. Or try to, at any rate. Compared to other games, there is no element of luck when it comes to Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. Instead, everything comes down to your deductive abilities and putting together clues where there don’t seem to be any.
If you’re looking for something slow-paced to play that is sure to instigate much conversation and debate, then this is one of the best detective-based games I can recommend.
Where you can find it locally: Meeps & Veeps
Exploding Kittens
Why Do Cats Always Get Their Way? They Go BOOM! That’s Why
Players: 2-5
You’ll enjoy it if: You like Cats, and you also like things that go BOOM!
The best way to describe Exploding Kittens to someone who hasn’t played it before is to compare the game to Russian Roulette. However, unlike Russian Roulette, no one will die and also… cats.
The reason why Exploding Kittens is as culturally significant as it is in the board game world has little to do with it being a great game and everything to do with its humour, art and its pick-up-and-play nature.
Players draw cards until someone draws an exploding kitten and loses the game. That’s it; that is 90% of the rules. If you’re looking for something fun, fast and oh-so-funny to play with someone else who is not familiar with board or card games, then you won’t go wrong here.
Where you can find it locally: Meeps & Veeps
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What do you think of this list? Have you played any of the games mentioned? Let us know down below.