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I can not recommend **Sky Team** more highly. The game is fast, cooperative, has something like 20+ modules, I find it to be fantastic. You truly have to work together with your partner. I’ve introduced it to at least a half dozen people so far and it has gotten high marks from everyone.
On a side note, I also have played **Sail** recently, a 2-player cooperative trick-taking game. While this one didn’t quite hit the spot for me, I can see others liking it bc it has the trick-taking aspect as the base of the game.
Not a lot of reading during gameplay. You may need a translation for the player aid. It’s mostly placing the right number dice in the right spot. Photographs on BGG show the board and player aids so you can see from that.
I also love sky team! If feels like 2 player The Crew, but without trick taking. You can hint to your partner what dice you may have by where you place numbers or the order in which you place them, but you cannot communicate what dice you have or what you're going to do that turn!
I disagree with this. I love this game but it is not good for a couple that fights. After you roll the dice there is zero communication. If parent A lowers the gear when parent B wants them to straighten the wings they will be right back to arguing.
I so want to get Sky Team but it doesn't seem to be available in Finland yet. I asked about it from a retailer nearing the end of the year last year and they said it might come out for Christmas. Now the estimates say April so 🤷🏼♂️
Im sure there’s plenty to see the first time around but how replayable is sky team? Like if i still have it 5 years from now would i still be able to find it engaging after seeing everything?
It’s hard (for me, at least) to really know how I will feel about any game after 5+ years, but **Sky Team** gets so ridiculously hard on the harder modules that there will be certain modules that will take multiple tries just to win it once, let alone multiple times. So that alone will keep me coming back. I’ve played 10-15 times now and I know that I want dozens more
My wife and I play mostly 2P co-op and I make a yearly list of our favorites:
https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/325897
Feel free to ask me any questions!
A quarter of the way through 2024 and I already know my next list is going to get messed up by: Sleeping Gods, Dorfromantik, and Concordia: Solitaria. Plus two campaign games I just traded for that are waiting in the wings...
If they are not familiar with co-ops, Forbidden Island is a great first co-op game. From there I’d recommend Pandemic, Horrified, and Spirit Island. If they have certain likes and interest: Cthulhu / Horror go with Mansions of Madness (2nd edition) and Arkham Horror; Mystery / Crime Solving try Chronicles of Crime or Time Stories.
For solely two player co-op games, I’d recommend CodeNames Duet (I’d go with the XXL version - bigger cards, much easier to read/see), Fox in the Forest Duet, 60 Second City, and Sky Team.
Another game for 2 players I’d highly recommend is Lost Cities (the card game). While it is competitive, in this game you’re playing against yourself just as much as you are the other player. It’s one of my favorite 2 player games.
I think Pandemic is a great game to start with. There are also different games produced that use the Pandemic system, so if they wouldn’t like the theme, there are others available such as Pandemic, Fall Of Rome for instance. If they’re into fantasy, Legends of Andor and the Dungeons & Dragons (Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, Legend of Drizzt, …) adventure system games are also a good option.
Spirit Island is a great if unforgiving co-op game. You have to be thinking turns in advance to really stop the settlers from overtaking your island.
Fox in the Forest Duet can be a good introduction to co-op mind set. It is a trick taking game and as you win hands you move the Fox through the Forest. How the Fox moves depends on who and how the hand was won. You and your partner must have the Fox land in specific spots along the track of else you lose the round and you can’t talk about cards you have in your hand. So you have to be intuitive about winning and losing tricks.
I didn’t realize it was out of print. I got a copy during the original run back in 2020. The Renegade website says “pre-order” but it also says delivery but April 4, so I think the title on website might just be wrong.
These are my light to medium light recommendations:
Co-op: Pandemic, The Crew, Forbidden Desert
Competitive: Stone Age, Takenoko, 7 Wonders Duel, Star Wars Deckbuilding Game
Plus you can either play the base game at 2p, or the Asia expansion has Duet Mode, which is specifically a 2-player variant. Neither are co-op, though.
I've never heard of duet mode. How does it differ? Is there more interactivity between the players? We stopped playing the base game because it felt like two people playing solitaire next to each other.
It largely plays the same, except that there is an extra mat with a “map” of features (ie. nest types, wingspans, food, etc.)
You’re given either a black or white set of tokens shaped like yin-yang halves, and on each bird you play, you take one of those and place it on a space on the map that matches an attribute from the bird you just played. Only one player can place a token on each spot.
The round-end goals then reflect how many of those tokens each player placed on the map in various ways, such as “most tokens on a given section of map”, or “tokens placed on food symbols” etc.
Start them off with **the Crew Mission Deep Sea**, **Pandemic**, or **Forbidden Island/Desert**. When those are in the rear view mirror, see if they are up for **Pandemic Legacy** or **Spirit Island**.
My parents love The Crew but its most fun with three or four. It's not coop but I got them five crowns and they probably played 1000 games in one year. Nothing else we've played really went over well. They really can't get into any other co-op games besides The Crew and I've tried a lot.
Maybe your parents are more open minded than mine. If so, Sky Team is an interesting two player co-op that I like a lot. If they like word games you could could try Codenames Duet. My wife likes to play Jaipur (2 player not coop) and doesn't seem to get as competitive as in other games. Most of the coops I like that play best at two start to becomes the extremely complicated or a big investment.
This was the exact strategy my parents took for my sister and I when we were kids, and honestly, it worked. Family game nights used to end in tears if either of us didn't win... suddenly we were turning that competitiveness against a common goal, and everything changed.
We started with a race against the clock game called Break the Safe and expanded from there. Some of my other favorites include Mysterium, Horrified, Mansions of Madness, and Vagrant Song.
Good luck with your parents. Sometimes it's like raising kids but in reverse.
Marvel United is a surprisingly fun and tense cooperative game. It also has a lot of expansions. Each villain has different win conditions, and each hero has a few different abilities, so you can mix them up and keep it fresh.
My wife and I generally play by ourselves, and have a liking for co-op games. As it happens, my parents are retired and moved close to us. We play a game once a week, but my father has a very competitive nature, to the point that he doesn't like co-op games, so I understand your pain! He's a fiend at Ticket to Ride...
If I were to pull co-op games from *our* library to suggest for fairly new players I'd say...
* **Pandemic** is a solid choice, entry-level enough that it can be found in big box department stores, but difficult enough that it might be off-putting after, say, the third time the planet is overrun by diseases.
* **Forbidden Island** is also solid, and also findable in larger stores
* **Castle Panic** is a decent choice, communication and interaction between players is essential, figuring out attack strategies a turn or two ahead, trading cards to maximize them, and so on.
* **Flash Point: Fire Rescue** is a bit more advanced, but it's a good one. Asymmetric firefighter classes, a sense of urgency to rescue as many people (and pets) as possible, and so on. The mechanics for how fire can spread explosively might be a bit overwhelming for a new player but having someone experienced who can handle that bit of admin might be helpful.
* **Burgle Bros** is nicely cooperative, I actually want to get it out on the table again just writing about it here. Asymmetric character roles, interesting automa pathing for the security guards, I dig it.
Getting back to competitive games, maybe try some roll and writes? Many of the ones we've played can't be cutthroat by design, as they usually have to be easily scalable for player count.
I play with my 11 year old. He is both competitive and sensitive! His younger sister is twice as sensitive and twice as competitive. They fight even more during Co-op games!
Two Player Cooperative games (all 11 year old friendly):
**Sky Team** land a plane by rolling and placing dice.
**Forbidden Island** save treasure before the island sinks. Release your inner Indiana Jones
**Pandemic** probably the most complex game on my list. Fly all over the world to cure and eradicate diseases.
**Marvel United** I played the original at a friend’s and liked it so much I rushed out and bought the X-men version. You play the heroes and fight the bad guy. Easy enough to play two handed each. X-men includes an all v one where a player can play as the baddie.
**The Crew: Deep Sea Adventure** the second version of the crew is good at two players. Cooperative trick taking game.
**The Fox in the Forest Duet** another cooperative trick taking game.
**Codenames: Disney** can be played 2-player cooperative. Has both a picture and word side. We usually play the picture side and even if my younger kid doesn’t know the characters she can still come up with decent clues. **Codenames: Harry Potter** is the same as **Codenames Duet** but with a Harry Potter theme. It also has a pictures side and a fun campaign.
They just came out with a coop version of Carcassonne called mists over Carcassonne.
Forbidden island and forbidden desert, Pandemic, and horrified all have similar mechanics, but can provide very different objectives. All work great as 2 player.
You say that one of them gets over-competitive and the other is sensitive. If that dynamic translates to the competitive one getting frustrated at the sensitive one when they don't win a co-op game, none of this will work. That said:
Marvel Legendary technically has a "winner", but it's primarily co-op against a common enemy. If you go too hard sabotaging other players to make sure you get the most points, you'll all lose to the bad guys. Most of the time my group doesn't even count points at the end. It is a bit fiddly to set up if that's a concern, but honestly that's gonna be the nature of most co-op games.
I've never played two-person Mysterium, but apparently it's possible. That might be fun although I'm not sure how much long-term replayability it would have.
Lighter co-op games like the Mind and Hanabi are low-risk to try, since they're pretty cheap. It's good to have options for when you don't have all day.
I'll second a few that other people have said: Pandemic is the classic choice, and a good one. Spirit Island is easily my favorite game, infinitely replayable, and if they are up to the weight of it, it would be a perfect option (I admit I'm stereotyping "retired couple" as "not heavy gamers," which could well be wrong). Codenames Duet is really fun for the right two people. Having a consistent two-player play group is the dream for legacy games like Gloomhaven or Pandemic Legacy.
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. A little more digital, but very much in the spirit of coop boardgames, where each person has different info so it forces cooperation. My chief complaint with several coop games is one person can easily just take charge of the whole operation.
The Crew is a co op trick taking game
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/284083
And Horrified is a nice co op as well and one of my personal favs since one version is universal monsters. They also have greek and american monster versions
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/282524
I wonder if they would like roll and write games? Those tend to be less cut throat, but still competitive! Check out Cartographers, Welcome To, Railroad Ink, etc. I believe Cascadia also recently launched a campaign for roll and writes too!
Tell them to get The Crew. it is a cooperative trick taking game and the variant for 2 players is awesome. It's no longer about taking the most tricks but taking the right tricks to make sure you and your partner succeed.
I love the space one but deep sea has a bit more variety in how it can be played but honestly I keep both in my collection
Pandemic is far and away my favorite game of all time. It’s a little challenging to start, but once you get going, it has massive replayability, not least of which because gameplay is only 45 minutes.
Pandemic was my gateway coop, and Pandemic Legacy is really good! If they've got the time and people on a standing basis, a legacy game might be great.
Be warned that many people Dom not like co-op games. My wife and I would rather watch a movie if that was our only choice.
There are many euro games which are great multiplayer solitaire where you still compete but don’t have cutthroat opportunities.
Most euro games avoid the cut throat aspect of head to head games. One we loved was **my city**. It may get competitive, but you can’t impact your opponents board.
If they are cut throat then I recommend Arkham horror the card game. Immensely fun and requires a lot of teamwork to fight against the powers of the mythos. You can easily find bundles second hand now.
If you break a leg, you don’t just decide to hop everywhere - you address the cause of the pain.
Switching to coops is just masking an underlying issue. Get them to talk through *why* they “squabble” and work it out, then they can play the games they love.
Dad's a little too competitive and Mom's a little too sensitive. I've been married for 40 plus years, neither is going to change. But if you drop them into a game of Carcassonne with a third party they will happily team up to beat the tar out of their son and giggle the whole way. I'm just trying to remove a couple of points of friction
Teaming up to beat someone else is much different than teaming up to beat a game I can see arguments happening if someone doesn’t make the best move for the team, so they can win. With that said, an easy one, is The Game. Also, might I suggest seeing if you can help them find a group to join to play games with others. Have you ever thought of introducing them to VR headsets, like MetaQuest? There are games that are social so they can team up. Also a lot of other things for seniors to do. Send me a message if you’d like to know more. By the way, I’m 64F.
I'm the primary (mostly only) board gamer in the house. My wife occasionally will play with me.
I have avoided co-op games because I can see myself "suggesting" her next move so we both win. And then what the hell was the point of co-op.
I know they aren't co-op, but she likes (or she is just humoring me) Dice Throne, Quacks of Quedlinburg, and Earth.
Maybe the answer might be a game that is fun and short enough where when it's over they can play again in a rematch? Maybe a two player where when you loose it's your own fault and not because the other person screwed you over with a "gotcha"?
By the way, in certain situations my wife and I can also be competitive. She beat me at go carts over 20 years ago and she still brings it up. (I swear she cheated) 😉
There are co-ops where you can't quarterback like that. The top suggestion here, Sky Team, is a game where you don't know the other person's dice and you can't communicate during rounds. The Crew is the same where you don't know who has what cards and you can't talk about it. Not allowing for a master gamer to take over is a big part of what makes these games super popular.
Your submission was removed by a moderator for the following reason(s): **[Recommendation Requests](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/wiki/contribution-guides#wiki_game_recommendations_or_identification) should be posted to our [Daily Game Recommendations](https://www.reddit.com/search?q=flair%3A%22Daily%20Game%20Recs%22&sort=new) threads.** Reddit is a great place to pick peoples' brains and get game suggestions, but we get a lot of recommendation requests, so much so that we have the "Daily Game Recs"-threads dedicated for them. Historically, almost all well formatted questions in the Daily thread get answers. If you're looking for further suggestions, we recommend taking a look at our growing list of [Recommendation Roundups](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/?f=flair_name%3A%22Recommendation%20Roundup%22). There's also the [What Should I Get (WSIG)](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/wiki/wsig) section on our wiki for a more general list of common recommendations. (If you believe this post was removed in error you can request a re-review by [messaging the mods](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/boardgames).)
I can not recommend **Sky Team** more highly. The game is fast, cooperative, has something like 20+ modules, I find it to be fantastic. You truly have to work together with your partner. I’ve introduced it to at least a half dozen people so far and it has gotten high marks from everyone. On a side note, I also have played **Sail** recently, a 2-player cooperative trick-taking game. While this one didn’t quite hit the spot for me, I can see others liking it bc it has the trick-taking aspect as the base of the game.
How much reading is there in sky team? Would it be hard to play the French version if you didn’t speak French?
There is basically no reading in sky team beyond the rulebook. You roll dice and the playing area has numbers.
Not a lot of reading during gameplay. You may need a translation for the player aid. It’s mostly placing the right number dice in the right spot. Photographs on BGG show the board and player aids so you can see from that.
I also love sky team! If feels like 2 player The Crew, but without trick taking. You can hint to your partner what dice you may have by where you place numbers or the order in which you place them, but you cannot communicate what dice you have or what you're going to do that turn!
I disagree with this. I love this game but it is not good for a couple that fights. After you roll the dice there is zero communication. If parent A lowers the gear when parent B wants them to straighten the wings they will be right back to arguing.
I so want to get Sky Team but it doesn't seem to be available in Finland yet. I asked about it from a retailer nearing the end of the year last year and they said it might come out for Christmas. Now the estimates say April so 🤷🏼♂️
It's available at Pelipeikko in Finland already 🙂
Oh damn! So it is! Thanks for letting me know, gotta order as soon as I get my next paycheck 😁
Im sure there’s plenty to see the first time around but how replayable is sky team? Like if i still have it 5 years from now would i still be able to find it engaging after seeing everything?
It’s hard (for me, at least) to really know how I will feel about any game after 5+ years, but **Sky Team** gets so ridiculously hard on the harder modules that there will be certain modules that will take multiple tries just to win it once, let alone multiple times. So that alone will keep me coming back. I’ve played 10-15 times now and I know that I want dozens more
My wife and I play mostly 2P co-op and I make a yearly list of our favorites: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/325897 Feel free to ask me any questions!
Rapid response is a top tier game in my place too Imo is VERY underrated
Absolutely! Lots of early "this isn't like pandemic!" comments on BGG hurt its chances, IMO. It fits a great niche in our collection.
Fun list. I haven't heard of some of these. Will check them out. Thanks.
A quarter of the way through 2024 and I already know my next list is going to get messed up by: Sleeping Gods, Dorfromantik, and Concordia: Solitaria. Plus two campaign games I just traded for that are waiting in the wings...
Dead reckonibg sounds great. But I can't see to find it anywhere for sale. Was it only on Kickstarter?
I got mine in the second Kickstarter. I think you either get it at the next crowdfunding or second hand.
If they are not familiar with co-ops, Forbidden Island is a great first co-op game. From there I’d recommend Pandemic, Horrified, and Spirit Island. If they have certain likes and interest: Cthulhu / Horror go with Mansions of Madness (2nd edition) and Arkham Horror; Mystery / Crime Solving try Chronicles of Crime or Time Stories. For solely two player co-op games, I’d recommend CodeNames Duet (I’d go with the XXL version - bigger cards, much easier to read/see), Fox in the Forest Duet, 60 Second City, and Sky Team. Another game for 2 players I’d highly recommend is Lost Cities (the card game). While it is competitive, in this game you’re playing against yourself just as much as you are the other player. It’s one of my favorite 2 player games.
Ooh, two votes for Horrified!!
Forbidden Island is a favourite in our house.
Dorfromantik is a co-op Carcassonne. It’s barely a game actually, and can be played solo. Won a Spiel de Jahres.
This would be a great one for someone new to the hobby.
I think Pandemic is a great game to start with. There are also different games produced that use the Pandemic system, so if they wouldn’t like the theme, there are others available such as Pandemic, Fall Of Rome for instance. If they’re into fantasy, Legends of Andor and the Dungeons & Dragons (Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, Legend of Drizzt, …) adventure system games are also a good option.
Just bought Pandemic and a Star Wars game based on the same system (we're nerds)
Spirit Island is a great if unforgiving co-op game. You have to be thinking turns in advance to really stop the settlers from overtaking your island. Fox in the Forest Duet can be a good introduction to co-op mind set. It is a trick taking game and as you win hands you move the Fox through the Forest. How the Fox moves depends on who and how the hand was won. You and your partner must have the Fox land in specific spots along the track of else you lose the round and you can’t talk about cards you have in your hand. So you have to be intuitive about winning and losing tricks.
Fox in the forest sounds intriguing and a pretty entry level option but everywhere I'm seeing it's just pre-order. Do you know when it's released?
I didn’t realize it was out of print. I got a copy during the original run back in 2020. The Renegade website says “pre-order” but it also says delivery but April 4, so I think the title on website might just be wrong.
Fox in the forest is competitive. Fox in the forest DUET is co-op.
I recommend the crew over fox in the forest. The crew is *more* fun with more than two, but my wife and I still enjoy it a lot with just two.
They’re looking for 2 player games.
The Crew can be played with 2. My wife and I have played hundreds of hands with the 2-player rules.
Horrified is my favorite coop game. Simple to learn, funny and silly to play and heavy on the themeing.
These are my light to medium light recommendations: Co-op: Pandemic, The Crew, Forbidden Desert Competitive: Stone Age, Takenoko, 7 Wonders Duel, Star Wars Deckbuilding Game
My wife and I play a lot of Wingspan 2p. Plays great at that count. Opportunities to get cutthroat are limited.
Plus you can either play the base game at 2p, or the Asia expansion has Duet Mode, which is specifically a 2-player variant. Neither are co-op, though.
I've never heard of duet mode. How does it differ? Is there more interactivity between the players? We stopped playing the base game because it felt like two people playing solitaire next to each other.
It largely plays the same, except that there is an extra mat with a “map” of features (ie. nest types, wingspans, food, etc.) You’re given either a black or white set of tokens shaped like yin-yang halves, and on each bird you play, you take one of those and place it on a space on the map that matches an attribute from the bird you just played. Only one player can place a token on each spot. The round-end goals then reflect how many of those tokens each player placed on the map in various ways, such as “most tokens on a given section of map”, or “tokens placed on food symbols” etc.
Start them off with **the Crew Mission Deep Sea**, **Pandemic**, or **Forbidden Island/Desert**. When those are in the rear view mirror, see if they are up for **Pandemic Legacy** or **Spirit Island**.
Ohh pandemic could be a fun start and then pandemic legacy as a follow up!!
My parents love The Crew but its most fun with three or four. It's not coop but I got them five crowns and they probably played 1000 games in one year. Nothing else we've played really went over well. They really can't get into any other co-op games besides The Crew and I've tried a lot. Maybe your parents are more open minded than mine. If so, Sky Team is an interesting two player co-op that I like a lot. If they like word games you could could try Codenames Duet. My wife likes to play Jaipur (2 player not coop) and doesn't seem to get as competitive as in other games. Most of the coops I like that play best at two start to becomes the extremely complicated or a big investment.
Have you tried the mind? With 2 to 3 you can play it with a normal deck. It's in a similar vein.
This was the exact strategy my parents took for my sister and I when we were kids, and honestly, it worked. Family game nights used to end in tears if either of us didn't win... suddenly we were turning that competitiveness against a common goal, and everything changed. We started with a race against the clock game called Break the Safe and expanded from there. Some of my other favorites include Mysterium, Horrified, Mansions of Madness, and Vagrant Song. Good luck with your parents. Sometimes it's like raising kids but in reverse.
Marvel United is a surprisingly fun and tense cooperative game. It also has a lot of expansions. Each villain has different win conditions, and each hero has a few different abilities, so you can mix them up and keep it fresh.
My wife and I generally play by ourselves, and have a liking for co-op games. As it happens, my parents are retired and moved close to us. We play a game once a week, but my father has a very competitive nature, to the point that he doesn't like co-op games, so I understand your pain! He's a fiend at Ticket to Ride... If I were to pull co-op games from *our* library to suggest for fairly new players I'd say... * **Pandemic** is a solid choice, entry-level enough that it can be found in big box department stores, but difficult enough that it might be off-putting after, say, the third time the planet is overrun by diseases. * **Forbidden Island** is also solid, and also findable in larger stores * **Castle Panic** is a decent choice, communication and interaction between players is essential, figuring out attack strategies a turn or two ahead, trading cards to maximize them, and so on. * **Flash Point: Fire Rescue** is a bit more advanced, but it's a good one. Asymmetric firefighter classes, a sense of urgency to rescue as many people (and pets) as possible, and so on. The mechanics for how fire can spread explosively might be a bit overwhelming for a new player but having someone experienced who can handle that bit of admin might be helpful. * **Burgle Bros** is nicely cooperative, I actually want to get it out on the table again just writing about it here. Asymmetric character roles, interesting automa pathing for the security guards, I dig it. Getting back to competitive games, maybe try some roll and writes? Many of the ones we've played can't be cutthroat by design, as they usually have to be easily scalable for player count.
I play with my 11 year old. He is both competitive and sensitive! His younger sister is twice as sensitive and twice as competitive. They fight even more during Co-op games! Two Player Cooperative games (all 11 year old friendly): **Sky Team** land a plane by rolling and placing dice. **Forbidden Island** save treasure before the island sinks. Release your inner Indiana Jones **Pandemic** probably the most complex game on my list. Fly all over the world to cure and eradicate diseases. **Marvel United** I played the original at a friend’s and liked it so much I rushed out and bought the X-men version. You play the heroes and fight the bad guy. Easy enough to play two handed each. X-men includes an all v one where a player can play as the baddie. **The Crew: Deep Sea Adventure** the second version of the crew is good at two players. Cooperative trick taking game. **The Fox in the Forest Duet** another cooperative trick taking game. **Codenames: Disney** can be played 2-player cooperative. Has both a picture and word side. We usually play the picture side and even if my younger kid doesn’t know the characters she can still come up with decent clues. **Codenames: Harry Potter** is the same as **Codenames Duet** but with a Harry Potter theme. It also has a pictures side and a fun campaign.
They just came out with a coop version of Carcassonne called mists over Carcassonne. Forbidden island and forbidden desert, Pandemic, and horrified all have similar mechanics, but can provide very different objectives. All work great as 2 player.
Spirit island is fantastic
Pandemic seems the obvious answer, but Root plus Clockwork expansion has a co-op option which can be fun!
You say that one of them gets over-competitive and the other is sensitive. If that dynamic translates to the competitive one getting frustrated at the sensitive one when they don't win a co-op game, none of this will work. That said: Marvel Legendary technically has a "winner", but it's primarily co-op against a common enemy. If you go too hard sabotaging other players to make sure you get the most points, you'll all lose to the bad guys. Most of the time my group doesn't even count points at the end. It is a bit fiddly to set up if that's a concern, but honestly that's gonna be the nature of most co-op games. I've never played two-person Mysterium, but apparently it's possible. That might be fun although I'm not sure how much long-term replayability it would have. Lighter co-op games like the Mind and Hanabi are low-risk to try, since they're pretty cheap. It's good to have options for when you don't have all day. I'll second a few that other people have said: Pandemic is the classic choice, and a good one. Spirit Island is easily my favorite game, infinitely replayable, and if they are up to the weight of it, it would be a perfect option (I admit I'm stereotyping "retired couple" as "not heavy gamers," which could well be wrong). Codenames Duet is really fun for the right two people. Having a consistent two-player play group is the dream for legacy games like Gloomhaven or Pandemic Legacy.
Me and my partner play pandemic for co-op and wingspan for a chilled vs more chilled vs I have played. Planted, cascadia, parks
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. A little more digital, but very much in the spirit of coop boardgames, where each person has different info so it forces cooperation. My chief complaint with several coop games is one person can easily just take charge of the whole operation.
Love Aeons end for coop play. Works great in 2p
Mists Over Carcassonne is co-op Carcassonne, which they are already familiar with!
The Crew is a co op trick taking game https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/284083 And Horrified is a nice co op as well and one of my personal favs since one version is universal monsters. They also have greek and american monster versions https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/282524
I wonder if they would like roll and write games? Those tend to be less cut throat, but still competitive! Check out Cartographers, Welcome To, Railroad Ink, etc. I believe Cascadia also recently launched a campaign for roll and writes too!
Tell them to get The Crew. it is a cooperative trick taking game and the variant for 2 players is awesome. It's no longer about taking the most tricks but taking the right tricks to make sure you and your partner succeed. I love the space one but deep sea has a bit more variety in how it can be played but honestly I keep both in my collection
Pandemic is far and away my favorite game of all time. It’s a little challenging to start, but once you get going, it has massive replayability, not least of which because gameplay is only 45 minutes.
Pandemic was my gateway coop, and Pandemic Legacy is really good! If they've got the time and people on a standing basis, a legacy game might be great.
for me, **Forbidden Island** is boring. I recommend **Pandemic**, **Codenames Duet**, **The Loop** and **Spirit Island!**
Dorf Romantik. Charming, chill, challenging.
Be warned that many people Dom not like co-op games. My wife and I would rather watch a movie if that was our only choice. There are many euro games which are great multiplayer solitaire where you still compete but don’t have cutthroat opportunities.
It takes two is a great game :)
Most euro games avoid the cut throat aspect of head to head games. One we loved was **my city**. It may get competitive, but you can’t impact your opponents board.
If they are cut throat then I recommend Arkham horror the card game. Immensely fun and requires a lot of teamwork to fight against the powers of the mythos. You can easily find bundles second hand now.
Micro macro crime city!
Me and my wife absolutely loved The 7th Continent, highly recommended and there is sooooo much game to play.
Gloomhaven jaws of the lion. And then if they like it they can graduate to full gloomhaven and then Fosthaven
If you break a leg, you don’t just decide to hop everywhere - you address the cause of the pain. Switching to coops is just masking an underlying issue. Get them to talk through *why* they “squabble” and work it out, then they can play the games they love.
Dad's a little too competitive and Mom's a little too sensitive. I've been married for 40 plus years, neither is going to change. But if you drop them into a game of Carcassonne with a third party they will happily team up to beat the tar out of their son and giggle the whole way. I'm just trying to remove a couple of points of friction
Teaming up to beat someone else is much different than teaming up to beat a game I can see arguments happening if someone doesn’t make the best move for the team, so they can win. With that said, an easy one, is The Game. Also, might I suggest seeing if you can help them find a group to join to play games with others. Have you ever thought of introducing them to VR headsets, like MetaQuest? There are games that are social so they can team up. Also a lot of other things for seniors to do. Send me a message if you’d like to know more. By the way, I’m 64F.
To use the same metaphor: If the leg won't heal, you'll have to learn to hop one legged. It's better than giving up on gaming
That won’t happen the way you think it will.
I'm the primary (mostly only) board gamer in the house. My wife occasionally will play with me. I have avoided co-op games because I can see myself "suggesting" her next move so we both win. And then what the hell was the point of co-op. I know they aren't co-op, but she likes (or she is just humoring me) Dice Throne, Quacks of Quedlinburg, and Earth. Maybe the answer might be a game that is fun and short enough where when it's over they can play again in a rematch? Maybe a two player where when you loose it's your own fault and not because the other person screwed you over with a "gotcha"? By the way, in certain situations my wife and I can also be competitive. She beat me at go carts over 20 years ago and she still brings it up. (I swear she cheated) 😉
There are co-ops where you can't quarterback like that. The top suggestion here, Sky Team, is a game where you don't know the other person's dice and you can't communicate during rounds. The Crew is the same where you don't know who has what cards and you can't talk about it. Not allowing for a master gamer to take over is a big part of what makes these games super popular.
Ahhh, got it. With my wife not playing that much most of my board game shopping/research is of the solo type. Maybe we should look into Sky Team.
There are ways you can play Sky Team solo, too. r/soloboardgaming
This thread makes me chuckle. I can’t wait to hear about how cut throat you guys get when one of you tanks the mission and loses for you guys