Octopus Overlords

Speaking of Agricola... there's a version of it called "All Creatures Great and Small" which is really good IMO. Much like Carcassone: The Castle, it does a great job of taking the same basic idea of the original but for 2-player only.

Sorting through a bit this more morning....

It looks like LotR LCG requires a bit of setup/deckbuilding? I'm not sure she'd be into the deckbuilding aspect. We probably need something we can set up and get into a little more quickly.

LotR Confrontation looks to be out of print (only available for $$$$$$).

Race for the Galaxy looks neat but I'm concerned about the learning curve.

With Dominion, do you have to build a deck before you play or do you build your deck AS you play?

Forbidden Island looks like a good possibility.

Still processing...

With Dominion, you build the deck as you play.

Mr. Jack is really worth it,

purchased it because of this thread and played it twice last night.

Great game filled with tension and suspicion .

Loved it!

I'll second Forbidden Island. It's a good "gateway drug" into more advanced co-op games. I find it a little too easy for my tastes these days, but there's no denying it's a great starter game. Plus the quality of the box and components is phenomenal for the price. You can get it online for < $15 which is insane for how nice the components are. If you end up enjoying it, you can move into Pandemic which is basically the same formula but tougher and more strategic.

I think I'm going to pick up Mr. Jack for a friend of mine for Christmas. He's a big Jack the Ripper "fan" and loves board games so this would be right up his alley.

FWIW, Amazon is currently offering Race for the Galaxy for only $18.99 (with free shipping if you add something worth at least $6.01 to your order). Also, if you happen to have an Amazon Visa card, you can use the code TOY20OFF to get an additional 20% discount, making it only $15.19. As you can see in the camel listing, it usually goes for around $23+ on Amazon, and is rarely much cheaper.

I wouldn't worry about the learning curve, especially if you watch Wei-Hwa's Race for the Galaxy tutorial videos, which explain the iconography in a very clear and coherent format, and also demonstrates a sample game that can really help make everything 'click'.

One of my favorite games, and now my boys' favorites, is Yggdrasil ( http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/71671/yggdrasil" target="_blank )

Great theme, especially if you enjoy Norse Mythology. It is a co-operative game, but so much fun, in my opinion.

Well, I guess nevermine what I posted...it looks like it is out of stock about everywhere, and extremely expensive (85 bucks on amazon!!??) everywhere else.

BUT...if you can get it, I think it is a very good game.

I don't think it's been listed yet, but it's a lot of fun: Smallworld

MythicalMino wrote:One of my favorite games, and now my boys' favorites, is Yggdrasil ( http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/71671/yggdrasil" target="_blank )

Great theme, especially if you enjoy Norse Mythology. It is a co-operative game, but so much fun, in my opinion.

Well, I guess nevermine what I posted...it looks like it is out of stock about everywhere, and extremely expensive (85 bucks on amazon!!??) everywhere else.

BUT...if you can get it, I think it is a very good game.

Interesting - - it looks like there is an Ipod version of this.... hmm.

I highly recommend the iOS implementation of Ygdrassil. A bunch of fiddly bits with counting tokens is completely automated. It's VERY nice to have the cards and tokens shown.

Epilogue: Ended up getting Forbidden Island and an old classic, Mille Bornes. She used to have MB as a kid, and is intrigued by FI. Success!

The girlfriend and I really enjoy Lost Cities, which you already have, and Dominion, which has been suggested by several people above. We started buying expansions before we got bored with the base set of Dominion so I'm not even sure what the base set is any more. Lots of variety.

We received Stone Age for Christmas and the first couple of games have been good. I've got a lot of hope for it. Stone Age has a lot in common with Agricola, which I love and she hates, but is faster to learn and faster to play.

We also like Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper, which is essentially rummy as you'd expect.

She tolerates Jambo. I tolerate Ascension.

We've tried and don't like: Mr. Jack, Agricola: All Creatures Great and Small, San Juan (I like it, she doesn't), Archaeology (too simple), Arkham Horror (too long), Red November. (Edit to add that we didn't get traction with Pandemic either. Guess we're just not cooperative game people.)

I want to get: Love Letter - a very simple card game (you have a hand of one card).

kganey wrote:I want to get: Love Letter - a very simple card game (you have a hand of one card).

I don't know if you've tried it, but I demoed Love Letter and decided it wouldn't be much fun for two. Thematically I think it would be perfect for my wife (and they don't get any lighter), but it's just not really well suited for two in my opinion.

coopasonic wrote:

kganey wrote:I want to get: Love Letter - a very simple card game (you have a hand of one card).

I don't know if you've tried it, but I demoed Love Letter and decided it wouldn't be much fun for two. Thematically I think it would be perfect for my wife (and they don't get any lighter), but it's just not really well suited for two in my opinion.

Nope, I hadn't tried it yet. It's out of stock on-line and not carried locally.

It's disappointing to hear that it doesn't work very well. I'd been planning on playing with my 6 and 8 year old girls - duration, theme, and simplicity all seem like a good fit - so I still might give it a shot. Expectations appropriately lowered.

kganey wrote:

coopasonic wrote:

kganey wrote:I want to get: Love Letter - a very simple card game (you have a hand of one card).

I don't know if you've tried it, but I demoed Love Letter and decided it wouldn't be much fun for two. Thematically I think it would be perfect for my wife (and they don't get any lighter), but it's just not really well suited for two in my opinion.

Nope, I hadn't tried it yet. It's out of stock on-line and not carried locally.

It's disappointing to hear that it doesn't work very well. I'd been planning on playing with my 6 and 8 year old girls - duration, theme, and simplicity all seem like a good fit - so I still might give it a shot. Expectations appropriately lowered.

Just to be clear, I was saying I don't think it would play well with 2. There are a couple of cards where having more players is better (where you have to choose a target player for an action), which is weaker with only 2. I think it would be better with 3.

coopasonic wrote:Just to be clear, I was saying I don't think [Love Letter] would play well with 2. There are a couple of cards where having more players is better (where you have to choose a target player for an action), which is weaker with only 2. I think it would be better with 3.

Thanks for clarifying, I'd forgotten that the game was listed as a 2-4.

The wife and I really like Mr. Jack a lot. Only took 1 game to totally get the hang of it. Last Night on Earth was a big hit as well. She liked playing the zombies while I controlled all the hero's. YMMV with that one. Only other game we have is Castle Raveloft, but we have only tried it once and found the setup time to be a bit annoying. I'm a newb to games like this so that's probably more of a personal issue with me.

Is Descent Second Edition any fun for two players? It looks really cool, but I almost never have anybody over to play so it usually would just be the wife and I.

Octavious wrote:Is Descent Second Edition any fun for two players? It looks really cool, but I almost never have anybody over to play so it usually would just be the wife and I.

For a fast-paced and fun two-player dungeon crawl, you can't go wrong with Asmodee's Claustrophobia, which is specifically designed for two players. The game is fairly simple to learn and sets up very quickly, with top-notch components (and even includes pre-painted miniatures).

Descent with two players would work if you allowed the player to play with more heroes, but it's more fun with 4 to 5 players, in my opinion. I'd check out AB's suggestion above for two players.

Hmm that might be the better option. We liked Last Night on Earth when I played all the heros and she was the zombies. Same idea, but in a dungeon.

We're 0-2 trying to play Ravenloft. The rules just seem to just be all negative which kills it for my wife. The monster modifiers make the monsters missing attacks rare. +9 on a 20 sided die? For serious? That means a 7 or better will hit. Oh and a lot of them hit for 1 damage on a miss? Add in the insane encounter cards and it gets silly quick. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong?

Well, Ravenloft shouldnt' be THAT hard. Especially the first couple of adventures. The difficulty ramps up as you go along through the adventures, but we never had much trouble with the first 3 or so adventures. Are you each only playing one character? If it's too rough, add in a couple of additional healing surges during your next adventure. And make sure you try and have your fighter do most of the the exploring. He's harder to hit and can take more damage.

We didn't even finish the first two times as she got annoyed and quit. I think I'm going to play through the solo campaigns so that maybe I can explain the game better. She had no problems with LNOE and this isn't that much more complicated.

Just played the first solo campaign and won it quite easily. We were just approaching it all wrong I think. I'll play another solo run and then try to roll it out again.

I'll second Claustrophobia. Fun game for two.

Has this list changes substantially in the last year? I haven't bought a new game in a while and I'm likely to meet up with redrun tonight and was going to stop at the FLGS on the way.

I'd add The Duke onto this list. Fun little chess-like two player game. Each piece has it's instructions for moving printed on it, and after you finish moving your piece you flip it over to the other side and you are presented with a new set of moving instructions for the piece. You start with a duke and two footmen on the board, and on your turn you either move a piece, or reach into your bag and draw and deploy a random piece. I played this about 4 times at Octocon, and really enjoyed each game, even the ones I lost.

Lorini wrote:I'll second Claustrophobia. Fun game for two.

Yeah, I liked it also. Though honestly I'm not sure why it's called Claustrophobia.

LordMortis wrote:Has this list changes substantially in the last year? I haven't bought a new game in a while and I'm likely to meet up with redrun tonight and was going to stop at the FLGS on the way.

Are we talking for wives or just any two player?

If wives: Krosmaster Arena is cutesy, easy to learn, and yet still fun and tactical. My wife seems to enjoy it. Lords of Waterdeep and the expansion is always a good pick. I think Eldritch Horror makes a great 2-player game (and can expand to more) but it may not be wife friendly. I hear that the Dwarf-Fortress-meets-Agricola Rosenberg game Caverna is coming out on December 19 (although it is a premium-priced game, due to all the wood the dwarfs have... er... you get it). Women love Rosenberg games.

Otherwise, Duel of Ages 2 is probably the best 2-player game to release this year.

No wives here.

the two games I am really into right now...Star Wars LCG and Eldritch Horror.

Both are great fun.

LordMortis wrote:No wives here.

Then Duel of Ages 2 and Eldritch Horror are must-buys. Krosmaster is fun too, but pales in comparison to DoA2. That being said, my wife would never play DoA2.

Just an FYI, the Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation has been reprinted, although it's more of an update as well.

While the rules and gameplay remain unchanged, there are a few new elements in this printing. They are as follows:

- The rulebook contains additional clarifications to make the game even more accessible and easy to play.
- This compact new edition features bridge-sized cards, as well as scaled down character stands and tiles, with new character cards to serve as reminders of character abilities. The game board now has visual reminders, such as character limit indicators and darker mountain borders, to help clarify play.
- It features stunning new artwork for variant game Fellowship characters, as well as for several cards.

This is technically the Deluxe Edition with the Special Variant and Draft options available to the Classic game.

I sucked out and didn't buy a 2 player game at all. We looked at several mentioned but then we bumped up to three players.

I'll be revisiting this when I break down and do another order from on online retailer.

I can't do Duel of Ages. It's not a game that sits well with me. I think my friends all dug on it at OctoCon, though, so I'm odd man out.

I think the problem with Duel of Ages II at Octocon was that you felt you were in a losing situation from the very beginning because I apparently didn't explain well enough the importance that character selection had on the initial stages of the game. Blame me for that.

I don't know if it was mentioned before but "cthulhu fluxx". We have played so many games since August that weneed a new deck.

hentzau wrote:I'd add The Duke onto this list. Fun little chess-like two player game. Each piece has it's instructions for moving printed on it, and after you finish moving your piece you flip it over to the other side and you are presented with a new set of moving instructions for the piece. You start with a duke and two footmen on the board, and on your turn you either move a piece, or reach into your bag and draw and deploy a random piece. I played this about 4 times at Octocon, and really enjoyed each game, even the ones I lost.

This one is pretty fun if you are into abstracts, but not super grumpy about a little luck being involved. Blockus and Hive I think have similar levels of smart funness.

Small World plays great with 2 people. It actually comes with multiple game boards to use depending on the number of players you have.