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Chief EGG Head
United States
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So recently I've had a little more opportunity to try 2 player games out and was ruminating about my experiences with them.
Generally when I think of 2 player games I tend to initially think about abstracts. So the classics (chess and it's variants, go, checkers etc) aside, I find abstracts appealing for many reasons. They tend to be visually attractive, have relatively simple rules and yet can be quite challenging. Often they can be played casually as fillers and sometimes as brain melting challenges. It seems like a lot of them require you to be good at some form of pattern recognition. They tend to be symmetrical in that both players start with identical pieces and goals and action takes place on the same playing field.
I had some fun this past weekend delving into the world of abstracts circa 1960's and 1970s. This time travel was quite interesting in that it got me thinking. What makes a 2 player abstract good (at least to me)? and wow! I'm glad the way publishers do cover art now is so much better than back then!
So on to the games. A lot of these games include the ever popular polyominoes as their main components. While both of these games that I mention can be played with more players in partnership or with 4 it seems like they would be best with 2. First up was Vagabondo 1979. Cover image by Big Bad Lex. Definitely a member of Blokus family tree. The board and pieces are adequately done although the score track is a bit fiddly. So from an aesthetic point ofview, not that attractive, at least to me. Produced by the same company that did Mastermind it's a decent enough game for the time. So the rules are pretty basic in Vagabondo. Players alternate placing the tetris shaped pieces on the board. The pieces must be placed orthogonally adjacent to a piece already played.You score the area of your piece and any opponents pieces you are adjacent too. If you cover one of the X-marked spaces on the board you get to double your score for that turn. In our two player game we found the board a bit too expansive to make it much of a challenge. We played again eliminating the outer row of spaces on the board and decided if you couldn't fit all your pieces on the board you would penalized for the pieces you had leftover (All the pieces fit in our game). This did make for a bit more interesting game. It seems like they made games a lot friendlier back then as it feels like there is less competition and challenge vs today's Blokus.
Along the same line we played Skirrid from 1977. Again this game involves playing tetris like pieces onto a board. This a a huge game. The board is flat and unfolding and huge! so the box takes up way too much space. The pieces are cool if not practical. They consist of clear and smoke colored transparent polyominoes. Some have small numbers (2 or 3) printed in some of the squares. You can kind of see it here in this piece. It was hard to photograph.
Skirrid for two is played on the inner colored diamond of the board. The grid also contains numbers on certain squares. You alternate playing pieces orthogonally adjacent to a previously played piece. The reason the pieces are translucent is to make it easy to see the numbers on the board. You score for the sum of the numbers covered. If you play a piece with a 2 or 3 on it you multiple the number covered by the number times the number on the piece. Talk about funky and fiddly score tracks. This one is even worse than Vagabondo's as it increases by 20. The moves are fairly easy to decide as you obviously want to cover the larger numbers with your higher multipliers. The challenge is in preventing your opponent from doing the same. You are allowed to play a piece upside down for half points and prevent your opponent from playing adjacent to that piece for one turn. Certainly a reasonably interesting filler. Too bad it takes up so much space!
Chaseback from 1962 is for 2 players only. Again a big box with an unfolding board. Nice plastic tokens. Here is the board. The pieces are placed on the center spaces of the board. Players take turns moving the pieces back and forth on the grid. Each player has 3 moves and the number of spaces to move the next piece is determined by the space the last piece ended on (the center spaces =4). You must move the exact number either backwards or forwards.
The green spaces are "safe" and your opponent can't move them if the pieces are on your side of the board in a green space. You can have up to two safe pieces per turn. If you get a piece to the goal you score a point and the piece returns to the center. You play to 15 points. The game is a bit boring as there are not really any clever moves you can pull and it can take a long time to get to 15 points!
I think the piece de resistance of the weekend was playing Rrib-Bit from 1973. It was kind of fun as the copy we played had the original note from the designer of the game inside it still.
The production is a bit overboard. The pieces consist of giant plastic albino and brown frogs which are a bit scary in appearance. You take turns moving your frogs in an L-shaped/knight movement around the board. You can capture a frog if you land on it's square. The winner is the first player to get 3 frogs in row in the center red square without your opponent being able to disrupt it on their turn.
On to more recent games now.
The GIPF series seems to ideally represent 2 player abstracts. They have generally simple rules, beautiful components and challenging play. I love the bits to these games. DVONN, TZAAR, and YINSH are my favorites. The only ones I haven't tried are GIPF and TAMSK.
The nice bits in abstracts are one of my favorite things about them. Ta Yü (the original Kosmos/RGG edition) is my favorite game with an Asian motif. The tiles are nice and chunky and have a great feel to them in addition to being a beautiful, tranquil ivory and blue, as opposed to the garish and jolting red of the newer version. As far as connection games go I think TaYu is one of the more interesting ones out there. In my recent adventures back in time I also tried Connections from 1991. A decent production but the game play was a little boring.
I'll give a special mention to several of the Cwali games of which I have written about previously which again provide nice production values with fast and easy game play for 2. Gipsy King Territories and Floriado are my favorites.
Kamisado is one I've had some fun playing recently. I find the original edition a little overdone from a production and size perspective, but I like the white edition(photo by sentiero) from HUCH. This game is gratifying when you can pull off some clever moves but so frustrating when you miss an opponent's easy win!
One of the few asymmetric abstract designs I've come across that I enjoy is Chinagold.
I've seen pictures for two new abstracts coming out this year and am quite impressed with the bits. Coerceo makes me drool a bit on the keyboard, but from reading the description of game play it sounds a bit dull. I think it's hard to tell from reading about an abstract game whether it will really pull me in or not. The line is pretty fine between a "wow, want to play this one again right away!" abstract and an "okay, I'd play it again but see no reason to own it" game. The other one is Moeraki - Kemu hoping to see some English rules or review on it.
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You must move the exact number either backwards or forwards.
and YINSH
are my favorites. The only ones I haven't tried are GIPF and TAMSK.
and Floriado
are my favorites.
