Duels and Duets

Although some games are only played with two people, such as chess, backgammon and checkers, most games including board games are created with three or more players in mind. A few currently popular games have introduced separate two player versions. These include 7 Wonders, Catan, Codenames, and Imhotep. Card based two player games like Fugitive, Star Realms and Saboteur: The Duel are popular, and other small format games like Hive Pocket are also popular.

A few review videos (here , here and here) provide lists of their favourite two player games: Chai: Tea for 2, The Fox in the Forest, Fungi, Lost Cities, Onitama, Schotten Totten, Sobek: 2 Players, Splendor Duel, Jaipur, and Watergate. The recent game, The Shores of Tripoli, is also popular.

Most war games are two player. Check out my review of War Games here.

They also recommend some multi-player games that are considered to be very good for two players: Arboretum, Azul, Carcassonne, Castles of Burgundy, Dice Throne, Disney Villainous, Everdell, Fort, Gloomhaven & Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, The Initiative, Innovation, Pan Am: The Game, Lord of the Rings: Confrontation, Patchwork, Res Arcana, Roll Player, Santorini, Seasons, Silver Bullet, Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective series, Tiny Epic Galaxies, and Twilight Struggle.

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a German-style board game designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede. It received the Spiel des Jahres award in 2001. It is named after the medieval fortified town of Carcassonne in southern France, famed for its city walls. Carcassonne is a tile-laying game where players collectively construct the area around the medieval French city of Carcassonne while competing to place followers on various features and score the most points.

There are many expansions available:

Click images to enlarge

The Big Box version contains the base game and all the current expansions:

Carcassone Big Box

See a video of game play here.

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Carcassonne is a product of Z-Man Games.

Star Trek Catan

Catan (originally called Settlers of Catan) has been was one of the biggest selling board games of all time that has sold over 20 million copies. I am a fan of Star Trek so I am interested in the Start Trek Catan version.

In Catan, players in the game represent settlers establishing settlements on the island of Catan. Players build settlements, cities, and roads to connect them as they settle the island. In the Star Trek version you explore space with your starships and build outposts and starbases near valuable planets. There you extract important resources such as the coveted dilithium, but the Federation also sends out other expeditions. Also, you have to be wary of competitors — and of the Klingons — who want to give the players a hard time. You keep the adversaries in check and outperform your competitors. 

 

Star Trek Federation Space is an expansion for Star Trek Catan consisting of 2 maps. These maps allow you to settle worlds of Federation Space using pieces from your Star Trek Catan base game.

See a video on the game play:

Click to view video

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is a game of deduction and deception for 4-12 players that plays in about 20 minutes.

In the game, players take on the roles of investigators attempting to solve a murder case – but there's a twist. The killer is one of the investigators! Each player's role and team are randomly assigned at the start of play and include the unique roles of Forensic Scientist, Witness, Investigator, Murderer, and Accomplice. While the Investigators attempt to deduce the truth, the murderer's team must deceive and mislead. This is a battle of wits!

The Forensic Scientist has the solution but can express the clues only using special scene tiles while the investigators (and the murderer) attempt to interpret the evidence. In order to succeed, the investigators must not only deduce the truth from the clues of the Forensic Scientist, they must also see through the misdirection being injected into the equation by the Murderer and Accomplice! (Source: boardgamegeek.com)

An expansion is available called Deception: Undercover Allies that adds more clues and means cards, more scene tiles, and three new roles.

Here is a good video showing an explanation of the game and a full game being played:

Click to view video

A product of UltraBoardGames.