The best board games for two players

Two players is an awkward number for a lot of famous boxes. The game that sings at four can feel thin at two, because the trading, the shouting and the audience have gone home. The three games here were built for a pair. They are not a top-100 list. They are three different answers to “we have an evening and it is just us”.

If the evening wants dice and a character instead, start with the beginner’s guide to D&D dice. If it wants a book on the sofa afterwards, the fantasy reading list is the other shelf.

What we looked for

A two-player game has to be interesting when neither person can hide. There is no third player to balance a runaway leader, and there is no table chat to cover a dull round. The useful questions are small:

• How long is it, really, once you both know the rules?
• Does it punish a slow start so hard that the second half is a formality?
• Can you teach it without reading the booklet aloud?
• Will you reset it on a weeknight, or only when someone has planned a games night?

Patchwork, 7 Wonders Duel and Jaipur pass those tests for different reasons. Prices are on Amazon, not here. The notes below are about how the games behave.

Patchwork

Patchwork is a quilt made of polyomino tiles, which is a solemn way of saying “odd-shaped patches”. You buy a patch, you sew it onto your board, and you move a token along a time track. Buttons are both money and victory points. The player who is behind on the track takes the next turn, so the person who grabs a huge patch also hands the next few turns to their opponent.

That single rule is why the game works at two. You are never waiting long, and a greedy purchase is punished in time as well as in buttons. There is almost no direct attack. Some people find that restful. Some people find a quilt an unconvincing way to spend a Friday. Play it once before you decide which kind of person you are. It is short enough that the experiment is cheap in time, if not a promise about the price of the box.

It is a poor choice if you want to bluff, and a good choice if you want something you can play while a stew finishes.

7 Wonders Duel

7 Wonders Duel is the two-player game people mean when they say they want “something with a bit of spite”. You draft cards from a layout, some of them face up and some face down, and you add them to a little civilisation. Military pushes a token towards your opponent’s capital. Science collects pairs of symbols. Civilian cards are the quiet points that win if nobody storms the gates.

The game can end before the cards run out. That matters. A player who is behind on points still has two other ways to win, and a player who is ahead cannot fall asleep. The cost is the iconography. The first game is a conversation about what the pictures mean. The second game is the real one.

Give it a table with some width. The wonder board, the card pyramid and a few coins take more room than Jaipur, and they do not enjoy a pub table the size of a tea tray.

Jaipur

Jaipur is a market. Goods sit in a row. You take one, or you sell a set, or you take the camels that make the market move. Round tokens reward the better sale. The first player to two round-wins takes the match.

It is the one to pack. The rules explanation is shorter than this section, the box is small, and a round is over before anyone has time to feel hard done by. The drawback is the same virtue. If you wanted a game that builds for an hour and then pays off, Jaipur will feel like three excellent openers and no main course. Play a match, not a single round, or you will mistake it for a filler it is slightly better than.

Camels are the rule that new players ignore and then respect. Taking the camels refreshes the market. Ignoring them is how you let the other person decide what you will be allowed to buy.

Which one to take home

Choose by the evening, not by a league table.

• You are tired and you want something kind: Patchwork.
• You both like a game that can turn sharp: 7 Wonders Duel.
• You are on a train, or you have forty minutes before you go out: Jaipur.

If you already own one of them and it has gone stale, switch category rather than buying a second copy in a fancier edition. A quiet puzzle does not cure a hunger for a duel, and a duel does not become calm because the components are prettier.

Where to go next

Two-player boxes live on the board games shelf, which will fill out as more guides land. A group that keeps adding people will eventually want a different kind of game, and a group that keeps adding story will eventually want dice. The dice guide assumes nothing except that you can find the top face.

The three boxes at the end of this page are the ones discussed above. The comparison is about fit, not about a score, and it does not include a price.