The Crew: Mission Deep Sea Review
Rating: (4.8)
The Crew: Mission Deep Sea is a cooperative trick-taking card game that turns silence into a rich deductive experience.
2-Player Games
In-depth reviews of all the board games I've played at 2 players, from head-to-head dueling card games to abstract strategy games to everything else. Includes all games that are possible with just 2 players.
Toy Battle Review
Rating: (4.3)
Toy Battle is a two-player area control game that borrows from Stratego and Scrabble, a tense war of deduction that doesn't hurt when you lose.
ORBIT Review
Rating: (3.8)
ORBIT is a fast hand management race in space, where nobody can plan five turns ahead and the standings can shift on a dime.
The Guild of Merchant Explorers Review
Rating: (3.0)
The Guild of Merchant Explorers is a route-building puzzle game that's pure multiplayer solitaire, and pure solitaire is where it shines brightest.
Taco Loco Review
Rating: (0.9)
Taco Loco is a dead-simple card game that's easy to learn, impossible to care about, and not worth your table time.
Moonrollers Review
Rating: (4.5)
Moonrollers is a dice-chucking push-your-luck game with a genuinely addictive re-roll loop. It earns its spot on my shelf.
Codenames: Duet Review
Rating: (4.6)
Codenames: Duet is a cooperative word game that clicks instantly for the right two people... and falls flat for everyone else.
Scout Review
Rating: (2.4)
Scout is a ladder-climbing card game with a novel twist and a great first impression, but it unravels with every subsequent play.
Ito Review
Rating: (2.2)
Ito is a cooperative party game that's charming in theory, frustrating in practice, and only worth owning in one specific situation.
The Isle of Cats Duel Review
Rating: (2.6)
The Isle of Cats Duel has a great polyomino puzzle at its core. Too bad the "Duel" part barely shows up.
Jaipur Review
Rating: (4.5)
Jaipur earns its reputation as the perfect couples game, but can a game this simple have much staying power?
Mille Fiori Review
Rating: (4.7)
Mille Fiori is a deceptively simple draft-and-place game that hides more tension than some games twice its weight.
Push Review
Rating: (4.6)
Push is a fast card game that makes gamblers out of everyone at the table... and somehow never wears out its welcome.
Chronicles of Crime Review
Rating: (3.8)
Chronicles of Crime puts you in charge of a murder mystery case and trusts you to solve it on your own—perhaps a bit too much.
Take Time Review
Rating: (1.9)
On paper, Take Time sounded like the perfect cooperative card game. Plus, it's gorgeous. But in practice, it has too many fatal flaws.
Kronologic: Cuzco 1450 Review
Rating: (2.7)
Kronologic: Cuzco 1450 is not the mystery deduction game it promises to be. You expect Clue, but you get sudoku... and not in a good way.
Fantastic Factories Review
Rating: (3.6)
Fantastic Factories is an engine-building race with dice placement. The simultaneous play is fun, if you can look past the shoddy artwork.
Cozy Stickerville Review
Rating: (4.8)
Cozy Stickerville is a cooperative choose-your-own-adventure game where you place hundreds of stickers on a board... and it's surprisingly addictive.
Century: Golem Edition Review
Rating: (3.4)
Century: Golem Edition is pure engine-building card play. Unfortunately, its gorgeous production doesn't make up for thin gameplay.
A Place for All My Books Review
Rating: (1.8)
A Place for All My Books is a cozy twist on worker placement, in which you play as an introverted bookworm cooped up in your apartment.
Dungeons, Dice & Danger Review
Rating: (3.3)
Dungeons, Dice & Danger is an adventurous romp through a dungeon, driven by smart dice manipulation and clever strategy.
Turing Machine Review
Rating: (4.6)
I've never played a deduction game like Turing Machine before. It's impressive, thinky, creative, and worthy of all the accolades.
The Vale of Eternity Review
Rating: (2.8)
The Vale of Eternity distills TCG gameplay into a pure engine builder that sounds awesome on paper but lacks that special sauce.
Junk Art Review
Rating: (3.7)
Junk Art has all the elements of a family classic. It's fast, fresh, and fun—with lots of variety and only a few flaws worth noting.
Décorum Review
Rating: (2.5)
"A game of passive aggressive cohabitation" is the perfect tagline for this game—and perhaps a bit too accurate for its own good.
Duel for Cardia Review
Rating: (3.9)
Duel for Cardia is one of the cleanest, fastest, and most replayable 2-player card duels ever made—and it only gets better the more you play it.
Lure Review
Rating: (4.1)
Lure is a chill push-your-luck dice-chucking game where you need to outwit your opponents for first dibs at the fishing pond.
Tag Team Review
Rating: (5.0)
Build your deck and see where fate takes you! Tag Team is my favorite 2-player dueling card game of all time.
Railroad Tiles Review
Rating: (2.7)
Railroad Tiles is a tile-laying puzzle game that doesn't do enough to rise above the many other games in this genre.