Hello Beehaw!
As someone that enjoy playing with my spouse a lot I wonder which games are your favorites for playing with or against someone else. Our current favorites are:
- Dominion
- Res Arcana
- Wingspan (still need to try Asia expansion)
- Terraforming Mars
Unfortunately these listed games are competitive ones so I’m also looking to increase the list of cooperative games! We did play Aeon’s End Legacy but need play the expansions.
edit: typo
Shogi. It’s competitive, but it has an excellent handicapping system. So it can be fun for two people at any skill level
7 Wonders Duel is specifically a 2-player version of 7 Wonders, and it’s very well done. Familiar enough to anyone who has played the original while being entirely unique mechanically. I really enjoy it.
Also, you mentioned it, but the Asia expansion for Wingspan is great as a standalone 2-player game.
A few more that often hit the table with just the two of us:
- Azul (any of them)
- Sagrada
- Parks
- Cottage Garden
- Patchwork (specifically for 2 players)
Our top 3 are:
- Fungi, because my s.o really loves mushrooms
- Shards of Infinity (w/ one expansion), because it’s a fun game to relax, not to easy and not too complex
- Jaipur, because it’s quick and it’s fun trying to screw each other over
My girlfriend and I really like Trails and we take it with us to bars pretty frequently!
Its like a baby Parks game, and has a few mechanisms I thought would really do well in Parks (which apparently the designers felt the same because they released a new expansion which adds a few Trails like features)
Trails is fun because you can decide how quick or long the game should be based on your movement choices
Yeah, being able to skip ahead spaces helps reduce some of the first player advantage, especially over the course of the game. We have also found our end game scores to typically be very close. We have frequently tied and had to resort to the 2nd and 3rd scoring (birds and number of cards). Except the last game. I steamrolled her 🤣
Lots of great suggestions in this thread! I will add a few of my favorites.
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Mansions of Madness Fun spooky co op that has a lot of stories to play through. Your typically an investing team trying to solve spooky mysteries. I saw someone suggest Arkham horror if you like that suggestion then you will also like Mansions of madness.
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Sleeping Gods Story telling co op adventure. The game takes you though this new world and you have to figure out how to get home. Very thematic with a bunch of different crossroads. Combat is very punishing but still fun. I also believe they are coming out with a second one. I love Red Raven games so I would also suggest Above and Below as well as Near and Far but both of those are competitive.
- Nemesis It is basically Alien the movie the board game. It is semi co op. You have a general objective to get the ship safely to earth but as aliens start popping out your goal changes to what you find most important. Every time I play this game I feel like I could have watched the movie I just played. Your goals could be aligned or they could not be. But why I like to play it with my wife is because even if our goals are not aligned we cannot fight each other you can old do some what harmful things haha.
The Gloomhaven suggestion
- I am sure people have put Gloomhaven. It’s top tier when we are talking co op but I would suggest jaws of the lion over Gloomhaven. Jaws is cheaper and a lot easier to set up than. This suggestion is only if your considering Gloomhaven.
Best of luck and happy gaming.
