20+ Best Two-Player Board Games to Add to Your Collection

A mash-up between Uno and Russian Roulette, this game requires players to draw cards from a stack (and follow the instructions on them) until someone pulls the "Exploding Kitten" card and loses the game.

Santorini is a strategy game that involves taking over spaces on the board to construct buildings before your opponent. It's simple enough for your 8-year old kid to understand, but engaging enough to keep you occupied too.

Here's another kid classic that even adults can have fun with. Each player picks a "person" from a wild cast of characters. Opponents then take turns asking one another yes or no questions about their pick until they can deduce who it is.

Or, take things up a notch with the Friends version of the game.

Bananagrams is a much-loved simplified version of Scrabble. Players fight to complete their own crossword and use up their tiles before their opponent—no tallying of scores required.

In this strategy game, players arrange tiles to create the geography of an area and then position specific game pieces on different areas to claim them and earn points.

In this fast-paced card version of the infamous board game, players compete to earn three different sets of properties. Plays are directed by the cards each player draws (a combo of action, property, house/hotel, and money) and what they choose to do with them. 

Don't worry, you don't have to be a train hobbyist to appreciate this one. The fight is on to control a longer train route than your opponent by collecting cards of certain train cars and fulfilling "goals."

In this two-player version of the original game, each player draws cards to construct the "wonders of the world" and take control of their opponent's capital.

This game is part strategy and part luck-of-the-draw. Earn points by matching tiles according to their shape or color until no tiles remain in the grab bag — the opponent with the most points in the end wins.

Instead of fighting against one another, Forbidden Island players work together to keep the island from sinking. They collect treasures along the way and then make strategic decisions about what they really need to save the island.

In this classic, players remove wooden blocks from the tower one-by-one until someone triggers its inevitable collapse.

The opposite of Jenga, Topple requires players to ADD pieces to the platform without it tipping and losing everything.

It's like chess ... but not chess. The end goal is to protect your flag. What it takes to get there is lots of strategy (hence the name) and forethought. At the beginning, each player arranges their side of the battlefield with bombs and military members that serve different purposes — and there's no going back once you get started.

In Rummikub, players treat their tiles like cards (using numbers and colors instead of numbers and suits) to form runs and matches— very similar to Rummy.

Revisit your childhood with this classic. Opponents position small ships on their own "oceans" and then try to guess the location of the other player's by firing "shots." The first one to sink the other's boats wins the battle.

This tile-matching game kicks things up a notch with three-sided "dominos." In the race to earn points and get rid of their tiles, players must ensure two of the three numbers on a playing piece match two of another that's already been set down.

In this traditional word game, players use the letters in their hand to add words to the board that connect with words that have already been put down—creating a sort of crossword puzzle. Certain letters are worth more points and can be multiplied when laid over certain spaces on the game board.

This crowd-pleaser can also be played one-on-one. Players move around the board answering trivia questions along the way to earn little colored triangle playing pieces that represent different categories. The one to complete their "pie" of triangles first wins.

How can something so simple be so fun? Kids and adults alike enjoy trying to outsmart their opponent in this 3-D version of tic-tac-toe.