Games for Two

With Valentine’s Day coming up, it’s an extra reminder that spending quality time with our significant other requires more than just watching your favorite Netflix show together. Today we’re highlighting some of our favorite 2-player games.

How many times have you pulled out a 2-4 player game, only to realize the two-player version is “meh”? Reverse, reverse, draw four, skip a turn, game over. Games are a great way to spend screen-free quality time together, and maybe even have some good conversations at the same time. We’ve all heard about too much blue light and screen time being detrimental to our health and sleep, so board games are a good way to unwind, disconnect, and stretch your brain. Many board games incorporate math, reading comprehension, risk assessment, and other critical thinking skills.

Cooperative Games

Many people may assume all board games are competitive and if they’re anything like me, they might even hate competition! Traditional games require someone to lose in order for someone else to win, but cooperative games have a common goal that all players are working toward. In these games, it's important to listen to each other to collaborate to solve the “problem". A couple of my favorites are Codenames Duet, and Forbidden Island.

 Codenames is a word game where you’re each trying to get your partner to guess certain cards - but if they guess the assassin card, it’s game over.

 Forbidden Island is more of a strategic game where you have to work together to collect all the pieces of your ship to escape the island.

Competitive Speed

If you and your partner are more into speed and competition, you’ll definitely need to check out these two speed games.

 Buildzi is a race to stack your blocks according to the challenge card - first one to stack, wins!

 Rubik’s Race is a Rubik's-themed slide puzzle. Shake this little cube, then it’s a race to create that pattern in the center of your board.

Competitive Strategy

To slow things back down, we have Planet, and Shifting Stones.

 Planet has that same “thinking 3 steps ahead” concept that chess has, but the goal here is to create regions on your planet that allow you to collect as many cards as possible.

 With Shifting Stones, you’ll each have a 3x3 grid of tiles and be working to collect as many challenge cards as possible.

One-on-One with Your Kiddo

Last but not least, for anyone who’s looking for a little one-on-one time with a little one, there are games like Gnomes at Night, and Story Time Chess.

 Gnomes at Night is an amazing game for ages 6 and up. This game is a cooperative labyrinth game where you have to talk each other through collecting all the treasures, with each side having a different pattern and different treasures.

 Story Time Chess is an award-winning chess game for ages 3 and up. The beginner levels will involve little stories about each character that teach kids how each piece moves.

When you're busy #adulting, sometimes you have to be creative in your personal life. Make it a priority to set aside at least one night a week when you turn off the screens and focus on being together. 

What are your favorite games for two?