Ben Baldanza: Two for the Show – My Top Ten Two-Player Games

In early 1996, my wife Marcia and I were living in Houston, TX and wandered into a game store on the north side of town. That store introduced us to Settlers of Catan and, like many other gamers, this started us down a road that has been much longer and more interesting than we expected at the time. But I remember asking “Is there anything good for just two players?” and the store keeper’s response was “Other than war games, of course, there’s really not anything out there just for two.” In hindsight he obviously was uninformed or just overly conservative, but the fact remains that since then the world of gaming for two players has grown at least at the same pace as the general Euro-game scene overall. In early 1996, for example, the Settlers Card Game, the first of the now expansive Kosmos two-player line, wasn’t even available yet.

Who didn’t play Connect Four, Mastermind, or at least Checkers growing up? Young toys from the time some of us grew up also focused on two-player contests like Rock’em Sock’em Robots. The Chess Club in school was the haven for the nerds, but even in junior high I wondered why there wasn’t a Go Club since my brother and I had played that game for as long as I could remember. Over time, two-player games have been dominated by war games and by purely abstract games.

If you’re not a war gamer, why play two-player games today when there are so many excellent multi-player games available? The simple answers are obvious: sometimes there are only two players available, and two-player games make a nice way to spend time with a friend or create a way to get one-on-one with a friend you’d like to know better. If you have low self esteem, then you may like two-player games since you have a greater chance to win than in a multi-player game; on the other hand, you can’t blame the poor play by another for your loss either.

Two-player games create a more personal setting and the nature of the competition is thus typically more straightforward. I’m trying to do better than you, or confuse you, or bluff you, and you’re trying to do the same to me. This idea holds in multi-player games, but the more complex interaction of having more than two competitors makes the feeling somewhat different.

The purpose of this bi-weekly column is to explore the world of two-player gaming in more depth. Future issues will include reviews of games designed for two players as well as two-player formats of multi-player games. Also included will be styles of two-player games, the business of two-player games, odd and unusual two-player games, and just about anything else that could be of interest to the two-player gamer.

This issue closes with my personal Top 10 made-for-two-player games and why they make the list:

1. Shotten Totten: This Knizia beauty is purer than Battleline and more fulfilling than Lost Cities. It has limitless replay value.
2. Mystery Rummy #1, Jack the Ripper: Mike Fitzgerald’s greatest game by his own admission. Surprisingly strategic card play and one of the best games to play on an airplane.
3. Union vs. Central: This overlooked Winsome game by Dieter Danziger is a masterpiece of design and is more rewarding to play and win than most games of this type. It takes a long time to play, that’s true, but the game value is high and decision making is top-notch.
4. Football Strategy: This older Avalon Hill title has stood the test of time and remains the best football game available. It breaks down the game into its most raw form: Can the defense out-think the offense?
5. Twilight Struggle: This 2006 multi-award winner deserves all the accolades it received by taking a great historical tension and turning it into one of the best area-control and card-strategy games ever made.
6. Destination Tresor: This quirky “survivor style” game from Finland’s Tactic is very fun to play and blends deduction, racing, and a clever set of mechanics to create a unique game that works very well even after multiple plays.
7. IQ-5: Originally made by the now defunct VarioPlay, this is the best five-in-line game ever designed. Players place pegs into a grid that divides the two, but each side of the peg is a different color. So, while trying to create your own line, you’re also trying to disrupt your opponent’s. So simple, and perfectly implemented.
8. Le Passe Trappe: Dexterity games make some excellent two-player games, but this hyper-active disk-flinging contest rewards fast but accurate shooting to win and the momentum shifts are super. Just beats the also-excellent Spinball by Aaron Weissblum for the best made-for-two tabletop abstract.
9. Gipf: The first and namesake game of this outstanding six-part series is Kris Burm at his very best. Despite the repeated successes of others in the series—Tamsk, Dvonn, Yinsh, Punct, and Zertz—the original set the standard and stays strong.
10. Pico (and Pico 2): This set of cards from Doris and Frank plays in minutes and works even while standing in line. Pico shows the beauty of simple but well considered design in a tiny package.

Next Issue: Predatory versus Non-Predatory two-player games

Editor’s note, March 2, 2010: Ben intended “Two for the Show” to be a regular biweekly column, but work ate into his time, so only three columns were published. —WEM

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