This installment, let’s assume that you don’t have a handy gaming group, and you don’t want to go to a meetup and play with a bunch of random players.  We will assume that you have at least a significant other or friend who’s willing to indulge you at least once to try these silly board games out (if you don’t, wait until next installment).  So here’s some two player games, ranging from fairly simple, to a little deeper.  None of these should be overwhelming, but they have enough depth to allow for some replayability.

 

Game 1: 3 card poker with goals  Schotten Totten (AKA Battle Lines)

Schotten Totten

Battle Line

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This game is another game that was designed by Dr. Reiner Kinizia, the current printing is named Schotten Totten and has a pasted on Scottish clan theme.  Battle Lines is now out of print, is the same game, with a pasted on army theme (generally medieval/ancient).  The game is fairly simple, there are nine cards that have pictures of stones on them.  You line these up between the two players, and the goal is to either capture any five of the stones, or three stones that are adjacent to each other.  Each player has a hand of cards from a common deck.  On your turn you play a card to one of the stones from your hand and draw a new card.  The cards are in 6 different colors, with numbers ranging from 1 to 9.  You can have a maximum of three cards on your side of a stone.  Claiming a stone can be done at the end of your turn if you either beat your opponent’s three card hand, or (using the cards in play) can prove that your hand will beat any possible one that your opponent could have.  The hands work like poker, so a color run (matching color in numeric order), beats a 3 of a kind, beats matching color, beats a run, beats three random cards.  If you get tired of the base game, the game also comes with a Tactics expansion which allows you to take actions to move cards around instead of playing a card.  This is light and relatively simple, and plays in about 20 minutes.

 

Game 2: Trading and Monopolization with Camels Jaipur

Jaipur

This is a game which is played over three rounds.  To set up, each player gets dealt a hand of five cards, which represent either goods (leather, tea, silk, silver, gold, diamonds) or camels.  All of the camels get put down in a pile in front of you, and your goods cards remain in your hand, hidden from your opponent.  Then, five cards are turned over for a communal market.  On your turn, you have four options:

 

  1. You can sell goods.  By selling goods, you take any number of the same good from your hand, and sell them to a discard pile.  After this you take good tokens (there are different amounts for each good, and different values) and if you sell between 3-5 goods, you get a bonus token.
  2. You can take a single good from the communal market.  You pick up any single card from the communal market and place it in your hand.  Each player has a maximum hand size of seven.
  3. You can take all of the camels from the communal market.  As long as there is at least one camel in the communal market, you can take all of the camels and put them in your camel pile.
  4. You can trade goods from the market.  You can trade any number of camels and goods from your hand for goods in the communal market.  You cannot take and return the same good to the communal market at the same time.

 

The round ends when either three goods tokens have run out, or the deck runs out.  At this point the player with the most camels in front of them gets a camel token which is worth 5 bonus points.  Both players then add up the points on all of their tokens, and the higher score wins the round.  The game ends when one player wins two rounds.  It plays at about 10 minutes a round.

[THIS GAME RECEIVES THE SWISS SERVATOR THUMBS UP!]

 

Game 3: Tetris… with quilts?  Patchwork

Patchwork

This is the first game on this list by designer Uwe Rosenberg, who is another prolific German designer of board games.  This game is a matter of managing three different items: Board Space, Buttons (in game currency), and Time.  Each player gets a 9 x 9 board, a marker, and 5 buttons to start the game.  The pieces are randomly arranged around the central tracking board and a wooden pawn is placed next to a specific piece, to show where in the circle you can purchase from.  Each player has two options on their turn:

 

  1. Pass.  Take their marker and move it to the space directly in front of their opponent’s marker.  They then get 1 button for every space they moved in this manner
  2. Purchase a piece.  You may purchase any of the three pieces on the clockwise side of the wooden marker.  Each piece has a cost in buttons, and a cost in time.  To purchase a piece, you must pay its cost in button, and then move their marker forward a number of spaces equal to the cost in time.  Then the wooden marker moves up to where the purchased piece was.

 

Unlike most games, turns do not alternate in this game.  After the first move of the game, whoever’s marker is behind goes next.  If both pieces are in the same space, the player on top gets to go again.  There are two different icons on the tracking board that indicate something special happens:

 

  1. A button.  Whenever a player marker passes this spot, collect buttons equal to the number of buttons visible on their quilt.
  2. A patch.  These are 1 x 1 squares. Whoever passes these first gets to take the patch and put it into their quilt.

 

The game ends when both player markers have completed the tracking board.  At this point, your final score is the number of buttons you have minus 2 points for every uncovered spot on your quilt board.  It’s also possible to grab a 7 point bonus if you were the first to cover a 7 x 7 area of your quilt.  It takes a couple playthroughs before the elegance of the design can be seen, and you start playing it in a cutthroat manner.  A game of this can be played in about 15 minutes.

 

Game 4: A 2 Player drafting game?  7 Wonders – Duel

7 Wonders Duel

There is a drafting game that is very well known amongst gamers called 7 Wonders.  It plays best with 7 players, and is tolerable at a player count of 5.  Below that it’s… playable?  So there was quite a bit of skepticism in the board game world when a 2 player version was announced.  However, it turns out that it works, and works well.  The key to the design is that the cards to be drafted are placed in a specific pattern, with some face up, others face down.  On your turn, you must select one of the face up cards, and any face down card that has no card layered on it now gets turned face up.  When you select a card, you can do several different things with it:

 

  1. Build it into your civilization by paying the cost on the card in materials.
  2. Discard the card for coins.
  3. Use it to build one of your wonder cards (assuming you have the materials needed to build it).

 

The game has two conditions that trigger an immediate win.  If a player acquires six different science icon, or if a player moves the conflict token across the military board then the game ends and the player who ended the game wins.  Otherwise the game is played over three ages, and at the end of the game scores are totaled up.  Buildings can be worth victory points, tokens can be worth victory points, and cash can be worth victory points.  The player with the most points wins.  Your civilizations will take about 30 minutes to be built and see which is superior.

 

I can hear some of you complaining now, “Well that’s all well and good, but I don’t have anyone who wants to play these stupid games with me.  What am I supposed to do?”  So next time, I’ll be discussing some of the websites that allow for online play of games, and going over some of the games available on them.

 

Special Bonus Game Review (by Trials and Trippelations)

 

Raptor

A quickie has become a necessity in my sex life since my son was born. It’s a part of board game life as well.  Raptor, a 2 player game with an easy set up, takes about 20-30 minutes to play, and fits the quickie description.  In Raptor, one player plays a group of scientists complete with flame throwers, knock out gas, and jeeps. The other player handles a Momma raptor and her five babies.

 

Each player begins the game with a deck of 9 cards that are numbered 1 through 9 with a special action noted on each card, from those 9 cards the player has a hand of 3 cards. On a turn the players choose one hard from their hand and places it face down. When both players have made their choice the cards are revealed simultaneously.  This is where Raptor differs from other games with a similar mechanic, only the player that played the lower value card gets to use the special action. The other player is allocated action points equal to the difference of the two cards values, but cannot utilize the special action. Used cards remain face up on the table, so card counting can be attempted. That rule really adds to the victorious highs of playing your cards right to the groans when you do not.

The game ends when the raptor player leads 3 babies to escape or when all the scientists are eaten, or the scientists capture 3 babies or totally knock out the momma with 5 tranquilizer hits.

 

Raptor is a bit asymmetrical, the scientists are the stronger side. But there is something quite gratifying in munching up Muldeenean hunters and wide eyed Hammondian scientists.

My wife and I really enjoy the game. We’ve focused on only playing the raptors or scientist to hone our skills before switching.