Jaipur—best quick strategic 2p game I know of; hand management, risk assessment, heuristic position evaluation.
Codenames—very good mix of cooperation, competition, other-mind-modeling, cleverness, not-being-too-clever, different levels of engagement, even trolling. Two teams of 2+ people apiece. Can be problematic for ESL. Word association, risk management.
Werewords—best quick party game that’s not boring that I know of. A cross between Werewolf and 20 questions. Bluffing, language, social deduction.
Goa—most interesting economics of any game I’ve ever played, especially when playing with 2 players. The whole game is good but the auction mechanics involve paying your opponents and growing or shrinking the overall cash in the game so it becomes very very tricky to figure out what value to put on your own cash. Auction, hand management, kindasorta engine building.
Personal favorites for different reasons are Race for the Galaxy, Terraforming Mars, and Mage Knight, but I have no reason to believe they’re some kind of general attractor. If you’re just browsing, or love one and haven’t tried the others, browse them too.
Mage Knight has an excellent steam workshop mod for Tabletop Simulator which I highly recommend! 🙂 Automates some things so you can focus on the most fun strategy. Amazing 1-player game, but also fun at 2-players.
Jaipur—best quick strategic 2p game I know of; hand management, risk assessment, heuristic position evaluation.
Codenames—very good mix of cooperation, competition, other-mind-modeling, cleverness, not-being-too-clever, different levels of engagement, even trolling. Two teams of 2+ people apiece. Can be problematic for ESL. Word association, risk management.
Werewords—best quick party game that’s not boring that I know of. A cross between Werewolf and 20 questions. Bluffing, language, social deduction.
Goa—most interesting economics of any game I’ve ever played, especially when playing with 2 players. The whole game is good but the auction mechanics involve paying your opponents and growing or shrinking the overall cash in the game so it becomes very very tricky to figure out what value to put on your own cash. Auction, hand management, kindasorta engine building.
Personal favorites for different reasons are Race for the Galaxy, Terraforming Mars, and Mage Knight, but I have no reason to believe they’re some kind of general attractor. If you’re just browsing, or love one and haven’t tried the others, browse them too.
Mage Knight has an excellent steam workshop mod for Tabletop Simulator which I highly recommend! 🙂 Automates some things so you can focus on the most fun strategy. Amazing 1-player game, but also fun at 2-players.