Games for two people: what to play with your partner, flatmate or best friend
Two-player games with nothing at all, with pen and paper, with a deck of cards or on your phones, plus ideas for long distance, a date night and the person who always wins.
Most game advice assumes a crowd. Six friends, a party, a family round the table. But a lot of evenings are just two people: a couple on the sofa, flatmates on a Tuesday, two friends who’ve already caught up on everything and want something to do.
Two-player games work differently. There’s no audience to laugh with and nowhere to hide. If you lose, you lost to the person sitting opposite you, and they will remember. That’s exactly what makes them fun, but it also means the games that shine at a party often fall flat with two. This post is about the ones that don’t.
What makes a game work for two
A few things matter more with two players than with a group.
Short rounds. With two, there’s no one else’s turn to wait through. Games where a round takes a minute or two let you play “one more” ten times without noticing.
A bit of luck. If one of you is much better at a game, pure skill gets old quickly. A little luck gives the weaker player a real chance and keeps the stronger one honest.
Something to talk about. The best two-player games aren’t silent. They give you something to argue about, laugh at or find out about each other.
Winning that doesn’t sting. Small stakes help. The loser makes the tea. The winner picks the film. Nothing that lasts past the evening.
With nothing at all
For a walk, a queue, a long drive or a power cut.
The film chain. One of you names an actor. The other names a film that actor was in. Then the first names a different actor from that film, and so on. If you can’t think of one within ten seconds, the round is over. It gets surprisingly tense, and you find out very quickly which of you has actually watched the films you claim to have watched.
Last letter. Pick a category, like countries, foods or band names. Take turns naming one that starts with the last letter of the previous answer. Germany, Yemen, Nepal, Laos… No repeats. Countries is harder than it sounds because so many end in A.
20 Questions. One of you thinks of something, the other has twenty yes-or-no questions to work it out. The rules and a few variations are in our classic party game rules post.
Fortunately, unfortunately. One of you starts a story with a sentence beginning “Fortunately”. The other carries on with “Unfortunately”. Keep going until someone can’t continue or you’re both laughing too much. No winner, which is sometimes the point.
Would you rather. Take turns asking. The rule that makes it work with two: you have to explain your answer, and the other person has to guess what you’ll say before you answer. Keep score of who guesses right.
With pen and paper
A sheet of paper and a pen is a surprisingly good games console for two.
Dots and boxes. Draw a grid of dots, five by five is a good start. Take turns joining two neighbouring dots with a line. Whoever closes a box writes their initial in it and goes again. Most boxes wins. It looks like a children’s game, and it is, but it has more strategy than you’d think: late in the game it’s all about who’s forced to open up the long chains.
Ultimate noughts and crosses. Ordinary noughts and crosses is over in a draw every time. This version fixes it. Draw a big grid of nine small grids. Wherever you play inside a small grid sends your opponent to the matching small grid on the big board. Win a small grid to claim that square of the big one. Three big squares in a row wins. It’s a properly good game, and it takes five minutes to learn.
Battleships. Two grids each, ten by ten, letters along one side and numbers along the other. Hide your ships on one grid, track your shots on the other. Slow, but very satisfying when you sink the last one.
Categories. Pick a letter and five categories: a country, an animal, a food, a job, a famous person. Both of you have two minutes to fill them in. Unique answers score 2, shared answers 1, blanks 0. It’s at its best when you have to argue about whether “Zucchini” counts as a food in a country where everyone calls it a courgette.
With a deck of cards
A deck of cards opens up a lot of two-player games. Our post on card games to play with friends covers Speed for something quick and frantic, and Rummy for a slow evening of talking while you play.
Two more that work especially well with two:
- Gin rummy. The two-player cousin of Rummy, with a bit more bluffing. You can knock and end the hand early when your leftover cards are low, which makes every round a small gamble.
- War. No decisions at all, so it’s really for children. But if you’re playing with a six-year-old, it’s perfect: it’s all about the flip.
On your phones
Phone games are good for two in a way that’s easy to miss. Everyone has their own screen, so you can play side by side on the sofa or in two different cities. Most of these are also short enough to fit in while dinner’s in the oven.
These are the games on Guezzer that work with two players. Each one runs in the browser, so one of you opens a room on play.guezzer.com, the other joins with the code and nobody installs anything.
- Card Clash: with two players it becomes a straight duel. You’re each dealt a hand from the same deck (animals, countries, cars and more), take turns calling a stat and play a card face down. The best value takes the round. It’s quick, a bit lucky and very easy to play again.
- How Well Do You Know Me?: one of you answers a question about yourself, the other guesses the answer. Then you swap. There’s a Couples pack written for exactly this, and you can add your own questions. It’s competitive in name only. The real fun is the answers you didn’t expect.
- Wavelength: one of you sees a secret spot on a scale, say Cosy ↔ Chaotic, and gives a short clue. The other turns a dial to guess where it is. With two, you score together, so it’s really a test of how well you read each other.
- Tier List: you both rank the same category in secret, and then compare. With two it becomes a taste test. Good for couples, terrible for anyone who thought they agreed about breakfast cereal.
- Higher or Lower and Timeline: quick head-to-heads where you both answer the same question at the same time. Higher or Lower is about which artist or song has more Spotify plays. Timeline asks you to place events in history. Last one standing wins.
- Price Check and Closest Wins: you both guess a number, and the closest guess wins. Price Check is especially good for flatmates who share a food shop and disagree about what things cost.
Long distance
If one of you is in another city or another country, a game gives a video call some shape. Without one, calls tend to end up as “so, what else is new?” after twenty minutes.
- Pick a time and stick to it. A regular game night, even half an hour, is easier to keep than “let’s call sometime”.
- Mind the time zones. If it’s 9pm for you and 6am for them, a gentle game beats a competitive one.
- Play on separate phones, talk on the laptop. The call on one screen, the game on the other. You can still see each other’s faces when the result comes in.
There’s more in our post on games to play on a video call.
A date night that isn’t dinner and a film
If you want to plan an evening around games, here’s a running order that works:
- Start easy (15 minutes). Something quick and silly to warm up. A few rounds of Higher or Lower, or Categories on paper.
- Something to talk about (30 minutes). How Well Do You Know Me? with the Couples pack, or Would You Rather with the guessing rule. This is the part of the evening you’ll remember.
- Something to win (20 minutes). A proper competition. Card Clash, Dots and boxes or Ultimate noughts and crosses. Agree the stakes first.
- Finish together. Wavelength, where you score as a team. It’s a nice way to end on the same side.
Keep the phones for the games, not for scrolling in between.
When one of you always wins
It happens in a lot of couples and friendships. One person is better at word games, or better at numbers, or just more competitive. If the same person wins every time, the other one stops wanting to play.
A few fixes:
- Give a head start. In a scoring game, the weaker player starts on a few points. In chess-style games, the stronger player gives up a piece.
- Swap game types. If one of you wins every word game, alternate with something based on luck or on guessing the other person.
- Play together. Cooperative games, or playing as a team against someone else on a video call, take the edge off.
- Keep a running score over a month. Losing one game matters less when it’s part of a longer season, and the comeback becomes the story.
One last thing
Two-player games aren’t really about the game. They’re an excuse to spend half an hour paying full attention to one person, which is rarer than it should be. Pick something, put the kettle on and agree on the stakes before the first round. Then take it a little bit too seriously.
