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30-Minute 2-Player Games I've Played at Lunch
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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I used to have a list asking people to contribute ideas for games that I could play with two players for a thirty-minute lunch. I received a lot of great suggestions, and managed to also pick a couple of duds in the meantime. Now that my gaming buddy has moved on to better things, I thought I would recap the games we did play, in our order of preference.
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Posted Thu Dec 4, 2003 8:49 pm
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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By far, this was the one we played the most, and liked the most. For such a short game, Odin's Ravens offers a lot in the way of difficult decisions, as the choice between advancing yourself, messing with your opponent, or playing to the Magic Way made for some delicious tensions. Our best game had to be the game where my buddy managed to pull a win after I won the first round, 11-5. He kept me from scoring any points at all for the rest of the game!
Odin's Ravens doesn't quite play in under thirty minutes, but we managed to correct that by playing three rounds and claiming the person with the most points the winner. That worked just fine. It does suffer some from the luck of the draw, but I enjoy games that combine the element of luck with tactical strategy. To me, this is one of the best of the Kosmos 2-player line of games.
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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Though not the deepest game we played during lunch, we enjoyed the certain strategies this game employed. Like Odin's Ravens, Rosenkonig suffers slightly from the luck of the draw, but I enjoyed trying to work my way into the lead after having drawn the cards I didn't need. It's a dry game, with a theme that's mostly irrelevant, but for the amount of times we played it and enjoyed it, it ranks near the top for us.
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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Having played Schotten Totten at home with my wife, I decided to bring in Battle Line to try with my buddy, since the games managed to stay under an hour (usually). Oddly enough, we never played the game with the tactics cards, so we were essentially playing Schotten Totten with an extra card in each suit. Still, we enjoyed the game enough to never have the desire to try out the tactics cards. (Some day, I'm sure I'll give it a try with the cards, though I get the feeling it will make the game a little less elegant.)
For such a simple deck of cards, this game presents quite a bit of challenge. We both quickly learned that it was best to keep our options open, though the luck of the draw often forced us to commit to a certain ranking before we were ready to. Still, this random element made for some fun games, and some funny moments. I believe that the theme for Battle Line fits the game far better than the theme for Schotten Totten, and the colors are easier to distinguish. I only wish GMT had gone with figurines instead of pawns.
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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This was the last game we played before my buddy left, but he seemed to enjoy this one quite a bit. (This was one of only two games that he actually said he wanted to purchase!) Because we only managed to play it about four times, we only just began to learn the strategy of using the statue cards before we finished playing all together, but, like Battle Line, it was fun to learn the strategy of the game as we went along. It didn't take us too long to realize that leaving one avenue with six cards was foolish, unless placing that sixth card would give us many more points than the next player!
The game is simple, and portable, and I think I like that as much as the game itself. I think the game could be improved by using a scoring track, which I tried against my wife by stealing the track from Carcassonne. It made it much easier to track the scores, and determine how our score was in relation to our opponent's. Had we been using the track for our last game, I'm sure I wouldn't have lost the game by ONE POINT. Grrrr....
Interestingly enough, my buddy sometimes had trouble with adding up all the points, and I, being colorblind, had trouble distinguishing the colors, so it was a good thing we were both honest players!
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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Ah, Balloon Cup. The first time we played it, we had missed the rule that we could play on each other's side of the board, so it ran long, and seemed rather tedious. Once we figured out that we could mess with each other, the game sped up, and took on a new level of depth. I think there were times where we both got angry at the other for winning the game by laying a high card on our low stack (or vice versa), but in the end, we had a lot of fun with the game.
Balloon Cup, to me, is one of those deceptively simple games that presents a significant level of challenge. Sure, sometimes the choices are obvious, but there are those times when you can either play on your side or play on your opponent's side, or even try to set up a play where you play on both sides over two turns. I'm currently trying to get my wife interested in playing the game....
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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When I first saw the box for Cartagena, I was intrigued. When I read the rules, I was impressed. When I finally got the chance to play the game at lunch, I discovered another game with a good mix of luck and gameplay, with a mechanic I'd never seen before. Luckily, all my expectations had been met.
Because we were short for time, and because we liked a mixture of luck and tactics, we opted to play the Jamaica version of the game at lunch. The first couple of games were klunky, with me winning them both, but once my buddy got a grasp of the game and discovered the best time to move forward and the best time to draw cards, he started to smoke me. Between the graphics, the gameplay, and the theme, though, I didn't care. I just had fun with the game!
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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Lost Cities was the first German-style game I brought for lunch, and it quickly became a favorite for both of us. We liked the light gameplay, and the decisions we had to make were often tough. The scoring kept throwing us off, until I downloaded the scoresheets from the 'Geek, but the games were usually evenly matched and fun. We managed to fit in three games each lunch, and given that we played the game for about two weeks, it's easy to see why we burned out on it so fast.
To me, this game is a great example of a game. The luck of the draw plays an important role in the game, but the decisions you make can compensate for a bad draw, and using the board for discards adds another element to the gameplay. If it were an hour-long game, I'm sure I wouldn't like it nearly as much, but as it stands, I enjoy it!
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8.
Board Game: Loco!
[Average Rating:6.62 Overall Rank:593]
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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We played the Loco! version of the game from FFG, and enjoyed it for a little while. I think the game presents its own set of challenges to have such basic rules, but over long periods of play, it didn't sit in our memories all that well. I think the fun factor here wasn't quite what we were looking for; typically, the games felt very dry.
For the record, we played by the Flinke Pinke rules, and completely ignored yelling "Loco!" whenever a zero was played to the table. We decided to forego that embarrassment....
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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The Very Clever Pipe Game was the first game we tried at lunch. We managed to get two games in each day, and we played this game for about three weeks, all told. Can you say "burnout"? I knew you could!
This is the only pipe game I've played, and I enjoyed it for the first week or so, but after a while, it just got old. The double-cap and u-bend cards quickly became the cards to have to win, and as the game went on, we started trying to screw each other up just to add a little excitement to the game. We never did try the advanced rules, where we would match the backgrounds instead; by the time we moved on to Lost Cities, we were so tired of the game that we just didn't want to try. One day, I may give it another go.
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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Pick Picknic isn't a bad little game. It's not a GREAT little game, either, but for what it is, it's fun. We didn't see any great challenges in the game, and we both agreed that it would play better with more people and (of course) more chaos. This is definitely filler.
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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I think my buddy liked this game a lot more than I did, but after repeated playings, I started wondering if TransAmerica really works with two players. Nearly every game ended with one person being one or two rails away from completing his own line, and it became monotonous over repeated gameplay. I've since heard from members of my usual gaming group that it plays better with more people, but I haven't had a chance to try that yet. As it is, I don't feel too compelled to bring it out in larger groups.
Just so you know, it wasn't the luck of the draw that turned me off of the game. It was the fact that each game seemed to be the same each time. I was looking for more options, I suppose.
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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After playing a sample game of Canal Grande against myself, I thought that it presented a lot of potential for play. I brought it in and we gave it a go for two days, but we seemed to be missing something in the game. My buddy didn't like it at all, so I know that had something to do with it, and I would like to give it a go with my gaming group some time. I still feel there are some subtleties to the gameplay that I would like to try.
If it were up to me, I think I would rank the game above Loco!, but since this is supposed to be a list of games that we both liked, I've placed it all the way down here.
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♪ Isaac Bickerstaff ♫
United States
Taylors
South Carolina
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We gave Groo three chances, and felt that we were really missing the point. Once, I won the game without even realizing it; we had played two more hands before my buddy asked me about it.
So, 'fess up -- does this one even work with two players? I had such high hopes for Groo....
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Posted Thu Dec 4, 2003 8:49 pm
London
Unspecified
Austin
Texas
York
North Yorkshire
Take It Easy works very well. I also suggest you look at Karibik if you have 3 or 4 players. Clans is another quick game for 3 or 4.
Shawnee
Kansas
Grand Priarie, Texas (between Arlington and Dallas)
Texas
Gg