Sometimes when you go through the ups and downs in relationships, life can often be pretty serious, games allow you to unwind while engaging with your partner.

During a date night or while relaxing at home, a fun board game with just the two of you or other couples is a great way to spend the evening.

This list a collection of board games that are great for a date night with your partner as 99% of board games in general work best with 4 – 5 players we thought tackling the two-player scenario would actually be helpful.

So if you are looking for games the play on a double date I would recommend literally anything you find interesting or my favourite Ticket to Ride Legendary Asia (you will need to also own ticket to ride as this is an expansion) This cooperative two vs two Ticket to Ride Expansion is my favourite double date game ever and I suck at it so winning is not the drawcard here.

Patchwork

This Game is perfect for a date night together so much so that my wife and I have it installed on an Ipad for when we are also on trips (Click the link to find out how you can do this yourself) It’s fast and easy to play but also provides a challenge so you can play round after round and only feel like you have been playing for 10min (4 hours later)

Personal Rating

☆☆☆☆

Game Description

In Patchwork, two players compete to build the most aesthetic (and high-scoring) patchwork quilt on a personal 9×9 game board. To start play, lay out all of the patches at random in a circle and place a marker directly clockwise of the 2-1 patch. Each player takes five buttons — the currency/points in the game — and someone is chosen as the start player.

On a turn, a player either purchases one of the three patches standing clockwise of the spool or passes. To purchase a patch, you pay the cost in buttons shown on the patch, move the spool to that patch’s location in the circle, add the patch to your game board, then advance your time token on the time track a number of spaces equal to the time shown on the patch. You’re free to place the patch anywhere on your board that doesn’t overlap other patches, but you probably want to fit things together as tightly as possible. If your time token is behind or on top of the other player’s time token, then you take another turn; otherwise, the opponent now goes. Instead of purchasing a patch, you can choose to pass; to do this, you move your time token to space immediately in front of the opponent’s time token, then take one button from the bank for each space you moved.

In addition to a button cost and time cost, each patch also features 0-3 buttons, and when you move your time token past a button on the time track, you earn “button income”: sum the number of buttons depicted on your personal game board, then take this many buttons from the bank.

What’s more, the time track depicts five 1×1 patches on it, and during set-up, you place five actual 1×1 patches on these spaces. Whoever first passes a patch on the time track claims this patch and immediately places it on his game board.

Additionally, the first player to completely fill in a 7×7 square on his game board earns a bonus tile worth 7 extra points at the end of the game. (Of course, this doesn’t happen in every game.)

When a player takes an action that moves his time token to the central square of the time track, he takes one final button income from the bank. Once both players are in the centre, the game ends and scoring takes place. Each player scores one point per button in his possession, then loses two points for each empty square on his game board. Scores can be negative. The player with the most points wins.

Ticket to Ride: New York 

Ticket to Ride is a great couples game but most of the time I have found in my relationship it goes for a bit long and my wife doesn’t want to play another game afterwards. this is the perfect solution to this it’s quick going for about 15min and feels just like the normal TTR experience.

Proving that in some rare instances faster is better in a relationship.

Personal Rating

☆☆☆☆

Game Description

Ticket to Ride: New York features the familiar gameplay from the Ticket to Ride game series — collect cards, claim routes, draw tickets — but on a scaled-down map of Manhattan that allows you to complete a game in no more than 15 minutes.

Each player starts with a supply of 15 taxis, two transportation cards in hand, and one or two destination tickets that show locations in Manhattan (and Brooklyn). On a turn, you either draw two transportation cards from the deck or the display of five face-up cards (or you take one face-up taxi, which counts as all six colors in the game); or you claim a route on the board by discarding cards that match the color of the route being claimed (with any set of cards allowing you to claim a gray route); or you draw two destination tickets and keep at least one of them.

Players take turns until someone has no more than two taxis in their supply, then each player takes one final turn, including the player who triggered the end of the game. Players then sum their points, scoring points for the routes that they’ve claimed during the game, the destination tickets that they’ve completed (by connecting the two locations on a ticket by a continuous line of their taxis), and the tourist attractions that they’ve reached with their taxis. You lose points for any uncompleted destination tickets, then whoever has the high score wins!

Codenames Duet

Codenames does not really need an intro this is almost a household name now. Duet is the best version of this release a new expansion constantly game for two players in my opinion.

Personal Rating

☆☆☆

Game Description

Codenames Duet keeps the basic elements of Codenames — give one-word clues to try to get someone to identify your agents among those on the table — but now you’re working together as a team to find all of your agents. (Why you don’t already know who your agents are is a question that Congressional investigators will get on your back about later!)

To set up play, layout 25-word cards in a 5×5 grid. Place a key card in the holder so that each player sees one side of the card. Each player sees a 5×5 grid on the card, with nine of the squares coloured green (representing your agents) and three squares coloured black (representing assassins). Three of the nine squares on each side are also green on the other side, one assassin is black on both sides, one is green on the other side and the other is an innocent bystander on the other side.

Collectively, you need to reveal all fifteen agents — without revealing an assassin — before time runs out in order to win the game. Either player can decide to give the first one-word clue to the other player, along with a number. Whoever receives the clue places a finger on a card to identify that agent. If correct, they can attempt to identify another one. If they identify a bystander, then their guessing time ends. If they identify an assassin, you both lose! Unlike regular Codenames, they can keep guessing as long as they keep identifying an agent each time; this is useful for going back to previous clues and finding ones they missed earlier. After the first clue is given, players alternate giving clues.

Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition

This cute little Roll & Write will have you making train tracks and constructing lakes as you try to connect all the stations.

It’s cute it’s fast and really fun to play (there is also a Red Version that is more death and destruction if that’s more up your alley) and the game plays great with two players and is really simple to play.

Personal Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

Game Description

In the multiplayer puzzle game Railroad Ink, your goal is to connect as many exits on your board as possible. Each round, a set of dice are rolled in the middle of the table, determining which kind of road and railway routes are available to all players. You have to draw these routes on your erasable boards to create transport lines and connect your exits, trying to optimize the available symbols better than your opponents.

The more exits you connect, the more points you score at the end of the game, but you lose points for each incomplete route, so plan carefully! Will you press your luck and try to stretch your transportation network to the next exit, or will you play it safe and start a new, simpler to manage route?

Railroad Ink comes in two versions, each one including two expansions with additional dice sets that add new special rules to your games. The Deep Blue Edition includes the Rivers and Lakes expansions. Increase the difficulty by adding the River route into the mix, or use the Lakes to connect your networks by ferry. These special rules can spice up things and make each gameplay and feel different. Each box allows you to play from 1 to 6 players, and if you combine more boxes, you can play with up to 12 players (or more). The only limit to the number of players is the number of boards you have!

Santorini 

This Game is perfect for the chess loving couple if you are after something quick and basic you can play without the character cards but if you really want to enhance your experience add them in and each round will feel like a different game.

Personal Rating

☆☆☆☆

Game Description

Santorini is a re-imagining of the purely abstract 2004 edition. Since its original inception over 30 years ago, Santorini has been continually developed, enhanced and refined by designer Gordon Hamilton.

Santorini is an accessible strategy game, simple enough for an elementary school classroom while aiming to provide gameplay depth and content for hardcore gamers to explore, The rules are simple. Each turn consists of 2 steps:

1. Move – move one of your builders into a neighbouring space. You may move your Builder Pawn on the same level, step-up one level, or step down any number of levels.

2. Build – Then construct a building level adjacent to the builder you moved. When building on top of the third level, place a dome instead, removing that space from play.

Winning the game – If either of your builders reaches the third level, you win.

Variable player powers – Santorini features variable player powers layered over an otherwise abstract game, with 40 thematic god and hero powers that fundamentally change the way the game is played.

Kingdomino 

I am yet to find a person that did not like this game! If you have kingdomino please let me know I’m interested to know why. Seriously!

This game is easy to play lots of fun and works well with 2 players its everything you need for your next date night.

And if you want to make it really hard and complex add-in Queendomino we did and am still trying to work out what just happened.

Personal Rating

☆☆☆

Game Description

In Kingdomino, you are a Lord seeking new lands in which to expand your kingdom. You must explore all the lands, including wheat fields, lakes, and mountains, in order to spot the best plots, while competing with other lords to acquire them first.

The game uses tiles with two sections, similar to Dominoes. Each turn, each player will select a new domino to connect to their existing kingdom, making sure at least one of its sides connects to a matching terrain type already in play. The order of who picks first depends on which tile was previously chosen, with better tiles forcing players to pick later in the next round. The game ends when each player has completed a 5×5 grid (or failed to do so), and points are counted based on the number of connecting tiles and valuable crown symbols.

Jaipur 

This simple quick trading game is perfect for something fun to do after dinner its a simple and solid two-player game that does not disappoint.

Personal Rating

☆☆☆

Game Description

You are one of the two most powerful traders in the city of Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, but that’s not enough for you because only the merchant with two “seals of excellence” will have the privilege of being invited to the Maharaja’s court. You are therefore going to have to do better than your direct competitor by buying, exchanging, and selling at better prices, all while keeping an eye on both your camel herds.

Jaipur is a fast-paced card game, a blend of tactics, risk and luck. On your turn, you can either take or sell cards. If you take cards, you have to choose between taking all the camels, taking one card from the market, or swapping 2-5 cards between the market and your cards.

If you sell cards, you get to sell only one type of good, and you receive as many chips for that good as the number of cards you sold. The chips’ values decrease as the game progresses, so you’d better hurry! On the other hand, you receive increasingly high rewards for selling three, four, or five cards of the same good at a time, so you’d better wait!

You can’t sell camels, but they’re paramount for trading and they’re also worth a little something at the end of the round, enough sometimes to secure the win, so you have to use them smartly.

Hive 

I really love this puzzle-based strategy game and tho the theme is not at all romantic its a really fun game that might be a great addition to your date night if you give it the chance.

Personal Rating

☆☆☆

Game Description

From the Publisher:

Hive is a highly addictive strategic game for two players that is not restricted by a board and can be played anywhere on any flat surface. Hive is made up of twenty-two pieces, eleven black and eleven white, resembling a variety of creatures each with a unique way of moving.

With no setting up to do, the game begins when the first piece is placed down. As the subsequent pieces are placed this forms a pattern that becomes the playing surface (the pieces themselves become the board). Unlike other such games, the pieces are never eliminated and not all have to be played. The object of the game is to totally surround your opponent’s queen, while at the same time trying to block your opponent from doing likewise to your queen. The player to totally surround his opponent’s queen wins the game.

Fog Of Love

This dating simulator for your date night is an interesting game if you and your partner are into shows like the bachelor this might be the perfect date night game for you.

Personal Rating

☆☆☆

Game Description

Fog of Love is a game for two players. You will create and play two vivid characters who meet, fall in love and face the challenge of making an unusual relationship work.

Playing Fog of Love is like being in a romantic comedy: roller-coaster rides, awkward situations, lots of laughs and plenty of difficult compromises to make.

Much as in a real relationship, goals might be at odds. You can try to change, keep being relentless or even secretly decide to be a Heartbreaker. It’s your choice.

The happily ever after won’t be certain, but whatever way your zigzag romance unfolds, you’ll always end up with a story full of surprises – guaranteed to raise a smile!

Carcassonne 

I would just like to say I suck at this game, just can’t get my head around always making terrible choices. However, I always have a great time every time I play it witch says something about how good it is. This classic tile-placement game will have you and your partner constructing roads cities and churches while earning points just remember to play farmers aways get beat my those farmers……

Personal Rating

☆☆☆☆

Game Description

Carcassonne is a tile-placement game in which the players draw and place a tile with a piece of southern French landscape on it. The tile might feature a city, a road, a cloister, grassland or some combination thereof, and it must be placed adjacent to tiles that have already been played, in such a way that cities are connected to cities, roads to roads, etcetera. Having placed a tile, the player can then decide to place one of his meeples on one of the areas on it: on the city as a knight, on the road as a robber, on a cloister as a monk, or on the grass as a farmer. When that area is complete, that meeple scores points for its owner.

During a game of Carcassonne, players are faced with decisions like: “Is it really worth putting my last meeple there?” or “Should I use this tile to expand my city, or should I place it near my opponent instead, giving him a hard time to complete his project and score points?” Since players place only one tile and have the option to place one meeple on it, turns to proceed quickly even if it is a game full of options and possibilities.

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Are you and your partner super sleuths? Do you watch murder mystories all day long? This game is for you!

Personal Rating

☆☆☆☆

Game Description

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: Jack the Ripper & West End Adventures is a standalone expansion to Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective with updated graphics that features ten more cases to be solved in Sherlock Holmes’ Victorian-era London, England. A “London Directory”, map, and newspaper archives are included with the cases.

Included are six independent “West End Adventures” cases (redesigned and updated from the 1995 expansion), and a series of four new cases based on the Jack the Ripper murders.

Jack the Ripper Cases:

  • Mary Ann Nichols
  • Annie Chapman
  • Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes
  • Mary Jane Kelly

West End Adventures:

  • The Strange Case of Dr. Goldfire
  • The Murder of Sherlock Holmes
  • A Case of Identity
  • The Death of a Transylvanian Count
  • A Royal Huggermugger at the Savage Club
  • A Simple Case of Murder

Onitama

This game leaves Chess & Checkers in the dust if you are looking for something heavy strategic. Not our style of date night but a great game and if you and your partner love those types of games you really need to try this.

Personal Rating

☆☆☆

Game Description

Onitama is a two-player, perfect information abstract game with a random starting set-up. On a 5×5 board, both players start with five pawns on their side, with the main pawn in the middle.

Each player has two open cards that each display a possible move for any of his pieces. There is a fifth card that cannot be used by either player. On a player’s turn, he chooses one of his cards, moves one of his pieces according to the chosen card, then replaces the card he used with the fifth card. The other player then chooses one of his cards, moves accordingly, and exchanges that card with this fifth card — which is, of course, the card the first player just used.

Moving onto one of the opponent’s pawns removes that pawn from the game. Taking the opponent’s main pawn, or moving your main pawn into your opponent’s main pawn’s starting space, wins you the game.

7 Wonders Duel 

One of the best two-player games around so it needs to be on this list this game is designed for only two people so it will not disappoint in giving you a perfect 7 wonders experience for a condensed player count. Great for those couples that are already seasoned board gamers and looking for something new to play together.

Personal Rating

☆☆☆☆

Game Description

In many ways, 7 Wonders Duel resembles its parent game 7 Wonders as over three ages players acquire cards that provide resources or advance their military or scientific development in order to develop a civilization and complete wonders.

What’s different about 7 Wonders Duel is that, as the title suggests, the game is solely for two players, with the players not drafting cards simultaneously from hands of cards, but from a display of face-down and face-up cards arranged at the start of a round. A player can take a card only if it’s not covered by any others, so timing comes into play as well as bonus moves that allow you to take a second card immediately. As in the original game, each card that you acquire can be built, discarded for coins, or used to construct a wonder.

Each player starts with four wonder cards, and the construction of a wonder provides its owner with a special ability. Only seven wonders can be built, though, so one player will end up short.

Players can purchase resources at any time from the bank, or they can gain cards during the game that provide them with resources for future building; as you acquire resources, the cost for those particular resources increases for your opponent, representing your dominance in this area.

A player can win 7 Wonders Duel in one of three ways: each time you acquire a military card, you advance the military marker toward your opponent’s capital, giving you a bonus at certain positions; if you reach the opponent’s capital, you win the game immediately; similarly, if you acquire any six of seven different scientific symbols, you achieve scientific dominance and win immediately; if none of these situations occurs, then the player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Morels

In a relationship with a vegan?

Personal Rating

☆☆☆☆

Game Description

The woods are old-growth, dappled with sunlight. Delicious mushrooms beckon from every grove and hollow. Morels may be the most sought-after in these woods, but there are many tasty and valuable varieties awaiting the savvy collector. Bring a basket if you think it’s your lucky day. Forage at night and you will be all alone when you stumble upon a bonanza. If you’re hungry, put a pan on the fire and bask in the aroma of chanterelles as you sauté them in butter. Feeling mercantile? Sell porcini to local aficionados for information that will help you find what you seek deep in the forest.

Morels, a strategic card game for two players, uses two decks: a Day Deck (84 cards) that includes ten different types of mushrooms as well as baskets, cider, butter, pans, and moons; and a smaller Night Deck (8 cards) of mushrooms to be foraged by moonlight. Each mushroom card has two values: one for selling and one for cooking.

Selling two or more like mushrooms grants foraging sticks that expand your options in the forest (that is, the running tableau of eight face-up cards on the table), enabling offensive or defensive plays that change with every game played. Cooking sets of three or more like mushrooms – sizzling in butter or cider if the set is large enough – earns points toward winning the game. With poisonous mushrooms wielding their wrath and a hand-size limit to manage, card selection is a tricky proposition at every turn.

Following each turn, one card from the forest moves into a decay pile that is available for only a short time. The Day Deck then refills the forest from the back, creating the effect of a walk in the woods in which some strategic morsels are collected, some are passed by, and others lay ahead.

Splendor 

If this list was rated this would be on the top one of the best games we play as a couple and like patchwork the app is played constantly Click here to find out how to get this on your phone/tablet/computer.

This Gem Related set collection gem is simple to play a lot of fun and really engaging your partner will love every moment of it we highly recommend this game.

Personal Rating

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆x100

Game Description

Splendor is a game of chip-collecting and card development. Players are merchants of the Renaissance trying to buy gem mines, means of transportation, shops—all in order to acquire the most prestige points. If you’re wealthy enough, you might even receive a visit from a noble at some point, which of course will further increase your prestige.

On your turn, you may (1) collect chips (gems), or (2) buy and build a card, or (3) reserve one card. If you collect chips, you take either three different kinds of chips or two chips of the same kind. If you buy a card, you pay its price in chips and add it to your playing area. To reserve a card—in order to make sure you get it, or, why not, your opponents don’t get it—you place it in front of you face down for later building; this costs you a round, but you also get gold in the form of a joker chip, which you can use as any gem.

All of the cards you buy increase your wealth as they give you a permanent gem bonus for later buys; some of the cards also give you prestige points. In order to win the game, you must reach 15 prestige points before your opponents do.

Qwirkle 

This game is a classic puzzle game that just works well if you and your partner are the puzzles solving type we highly recommend you grab a copy of Qwirkle there are so many different formats now (from Travel to Cards) that you will be spoilt for choice.

Game Description

The abstract game of Qwirkle consists of 108 wooden blocks with six different shapes in six different colors. There is no board, players simply use an available flat surface.

Players begin the game with six blocks. The start player places blocks of a single matching attribute (color or shape but not both) on the table. Thereafter, a player adds blocks adjacent to at least one previously played block. The blocks must all be played in a line and match, without duplicates, either the color or shape of the previous block.

Players score one point for each block played plus all blocks adjacent. It is possible for a block to score in more than one direction. If a player completes a line containing all six shapes or colors, an additional six points are scored. The player then refills his hand to six blocks.

The game ends when the draw bag is depleted and one player plays all of his remaining blocks, earning a six point bonus. The player with the high score wins.

Hanabi 

Great Two-Player Cooperative Game that will have you and your partner creating a grand fireworks celebration it’s a blast a really does work well with only two players.

Game Description

Hanabi—named for the Japanese word for “fireworks”—is a cooperative game in which players try to create the perfect fireworks show by placing the cards on the table in the right order. (In Japanese, hanabi is written as 花火; these are the ideograms flower and fire, respectively.)

The card deck consists of five different colors of cards, numbered 1–5 in each color. For each color, the players try to place a row in the correct order from 1–5. Sounds easy, right? Well, not quite, as in this game you hold your cards so that they’re visible only to other players. To assist other players in playing a card, you must give them hints regarding the numbers or the colors of their cards. Players must act as a team to avoid errors and to finish the fireworks display before they run out of cards.

An extra suit of cards, rainbow colored, is also provided for advanced or variant play.

What are your Date Night Board Games?

Let us know in the comments below what you and your partner play on date night is it any of the games above or do you have another suggestion that you think should be included on this list?

Let us know we would love to hear what you are playing.

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