Thinky but fast-moving, this one is easy enough for a sharp-minded tween to play but great with adults as well. It’s a polished effort that has no unnecessary rules bloat, doesn’t overstay its welcome, and comes with some delightful grape, fish, and veggie meeples.
Two-player games
Spending a lot of time inside with one other person? These two-player titles make a terrific break from staring at your respective phones in silence.
7 Wonders Duel
2 players, 30-45 minutes, ages 10+, $30 on Amazon
7 Wonders Duel, a two-player version of the modern classic 7 Wonders, retools the civ-building-with-cards mechanism of the bigger game into something quick, tense, and interesting from turn one.
On every turn, spread across three “ages,” you select an available card from the table in front of you and either build it with resources, discard it for money, or use it to build one of the game’s titular “wonders.” Building cards gives you wood, stone, glass, bricks, parchment, scientific achievements, military power, or luscious, unadulterated victory points.
You win the game in one of three ways: victory points, military invasion, or complete scientific dominance. (A clever military track across the top of the game spaces uses a “push-pull” mechanism between players to track military supremacy; move the shield pawn all the way into the opponent’s base and the game ends immediately.) Along the way, you’ll build your personal set of wonders to provide powerful bonuses, more resources, and occasionally additional turns.
While the full 7 Wonders uses card drafting to make these same mechanisms work, Duel relies on drawing from specific geometrical card arrangements, such as a pyramid in which every other row of cards is face down and certain cards are only available once the cards below them are removed. This turns the process of card collection into a puzzle of its own, as you don’t want to expose powerful cards that you want (or cards you want to deny your opponent) until you’re in a place to snap them up.
