Our favorite 2-player board games for around $25

Our favorite 2-player board games for around $25

Posted Sunday, 24-May-2015

Perhaps you don’t have many other gamers locally. Perhaps you want something to play with your other half. Perhaps you just like 2-player games.

Whatever the case, here are some our favorite board games for around $25…

Carcassonne

A long standing favorite of Euro-gamers, in Carcassonne you take turns laying tiles while you map out a region of medieval France. Connect roads, cities and monasteries to get the most points.

Playing time: 45 minutes

# of Players: 2-5 players

Gaming Mechanics: Tile Placement, Area Control

Prices from $23.99

Carcassonne: The Castle

While the original Carcassonne works fine as a 2-player board game, there’s also a version designed specifically for two players – Carcassonne: The Castle. Build up houses, roads, citadels and markets within the safe walls of the castle, in a variation on the classic tile-laying game.

Playing time: 30 minutes

# of Players: 2 players

Gaming Mechanics: Tile Placement, Area Control

Prices from $19.00

Doomtown: Reloaded

The most recent in a whole raft of deck-building games, Doomtown: Reloaded sees you battle for control of a wild west town full of magic and mad science. The starter deck is a great game all by itself, full of careful manoeuvrings & action-packed shootouts, and a good way of trying out deck-building games.

With all the different card combinations, no two games will ever be the same.

Playing time: 30 minutes

# of Players: 2-3 players

Gaming Mechanics: Betting/Wagering, Hand Management, Area Control

Prices from $20.00

Hive

Maneuver your insects around the interior of the hive in an attempt to capture each others’ queen bees. Each insect moves differently, and it’s through carefully combining their abilities that you can build a winning strategy. A clever, thought provoking alternative for fans of games like chess.

Playing time: 20 minutes

# of Players: 2 players

Gaming Mechanics: Tile Placement, Grid Movement

Prices from $21.51

Forbidden Desert

Your airship has crashed in the shifting sands of the desert. Now you must try to find and dig out all the pieces before you and your companions die of thirst or are buried by a sandstorm. A challenging and exciting cooperative game.

Playing time: 45 minutes

# of Players: 2-5 players

Gaming Mechanics: Cooperative, Grid Movement

Prices from $15.99

Rivals for Catan

Classic board game Settlers of Catan tends to end up unbalanced with two players, so designer Klaus Teuber developed this two-player card game alternative. Gather resources, build roads and construct settlements in an alternative take on one of the all time great board games.

Playing time: 45 minutes

# of Players: 2 players

Gaming Mechanics: Memory, Hand-Management, Train Game

Prices from $15.99

Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small

Another case of a two-player variation on a larger game, this time taking the hugely popular farming-themed game Agricola and cutting away many of its complexities. Raise animals and expand your farm in competition with one other player, while also avoiding the starvation mechanic that sometimes made the original stressful.

Playing time: 30 minutes

# of Players: 2 players

Gaming Mechanics: Worker Placement, Tile Placement

Prices from $24.99

Dominion

The card game that introduced deck building as a mechanic within the game, Dominion’s many different cards allow huge variety of play even without the expansions.

Fast and fun to play, it forces players to make a delicate balance between building up their kingdom’s abilities and piling on victory point cards that get in the way. Works as well with two players as three or four.