The Best Board Games for Couples Looking for Fun

Do you love a game night? So many board games are created for groups of people, generally around four people. So when you’re looking to plan a fun date night at home, it’s hard to find games that are created for two people or easy to play with a small group. We’ve put together a list of the best board games for couples. You’ll find cooperative games, competitive games, visual games, and strategy games. We even included some card games if you don’t have a lot of space.

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Find a new way to have an adventure!

When you’re done playing your latest favorite board game, pick up your copy of Adventures from Scratch: Date Edition and uncover a new activity together. With tear-out “Reasons Why I Love You” cards, conversation prompts, and ideas to serve several interests, this interactive book is the perfect tool to help keep date night fresh and exciting!

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The Best Board Games for Couples

Here is a list of the best two-player board games and card games that you can use on your next date night. There is something for everyone on this list.

Monopoly

Time to Play: ~45 minutes

Monopoly is a Hasbro game about real estate, money, and fun competition. You travel around the board collecting money and saving up to purchase properties, then adding houses and hotels to them. Each time your opponent lands on one of your properties, they will have to give you money.

The game continues until someone goes bankrupt. Things get dicey when people get sent to jail and land on tax spaces and utility spots. The game is pretty easy to play and can be extended to bigger groups if you want to play with more friends.

For something a little more simple, the card game, Monopoly Deal, is simple to play and you can enjoy multiple rounds because it just takes an average of 15 minutes. Thanks to this being one of the most popular games in the US, they have created tons of variations of the game. You can find options that are themed after geographic locations, movie series, and even sports teams, so it can also make a great gift for your significant other.

Sequence

Time to Play: ~30 minutes

This game is like a board game that meets a deck of cards. Once the board is set up, you’ll receive a hand of cards. You take turns laying chips of your color on the board using the cards in your hand. Each person will have their own strategy when they play, plus you never know what cards your partner has in hand. 

The real trickiness comes in when the jacks are played. Jacks are like wild cards where you can either lay down a chip on any space you’d like or remove one of your opponent’s chips. It just depends on whether you have a one-eyed jack or a two-eyed jack. 

You’ll be able to understand the rules in no time and it’s a great game to keep on hand. If you have more people with you, you can actually divide into teams and play with each other. The trick here is to avoid any table talk because that can get you in trouble. You essentially just need to be able to read your partner’s mind when choosing which spaces you lay your chips down in.

Chess

Time to Play: 10-60 minutes

Thanks to the popular Netflix hit, The Queen’s Gambit, Chess is a game that has increased in popularity in the last two years. The game itself can be traced back over 1500 years to a game in India, called chaturanga. Now, you can find chess sets made of all types of materials and designs.

There are six pieces on the board—the king, the queen, the bishop, the rook, the knight, and the pawn—and each moves in a unique way from the others. The object of the game is to call out “Checkmate” where your opponents’ king is in a position where it cannot escape. That wins you the game. Each piece can be taken out along the way by others to open up the paths to get to the king.

You can find several tutorials available online to learn to play chess. It’s a game of strategy and anticipating the moves of your partner. Whether you invest in a cool, unique chessboard, or utilize a free one in the park in your city, you’ll be able to enjoy this game for a long time.

Mancala

Time to Play: ~15 minutes

Mancala is a two-player strategy game that dates back to Ancient Egypt. It is one of the oldest known games that is still played today. The playing board varies in parts of the world, but the idea of the game is similar. 

Each player starts with a certain amount of marbles, seeds, or other small items in each of the pits on the game board. The turn starts by picking up all the items in one pit and dropping one in each of the following pits until you run out. If the last one you drop lands in an empty pit, you get to take all the pieces in the opposite pit 

The object of the game is to collect as many of the small game pieces as possible. It’s fun and easy to play. You can make your own board or pick one up from any toy store. You might even find the sounds of the game relaxing and therapeutic. It’s easy to see why this is a favorite.

Ticket to Ride

Time to Play: ~45 minutes

Ticket to Ride is a fun game that can be played with 2-5 players. The gameboard is a map with colorful paths leading from city to city. Each player is given multiple missions at the beginning of the game. Each person takes turns drawing cards and building trains to complete their missions. The more cities you connect, the more points you get. 

The rules for this game are simple and easy to pick up. The games rarely last longer than 30-45 minutes. It’s perfect for two players and you’ll each form strategies throughout the game. Plus, you’ll be able to brush up on your geography knowledge by staring at these maps.

If you want to change it up, you can purchase a different version of the game. The original covers the United States, but you can also choose from Rails and Sails, Europe, Asia, Japan, New York, Nordic Countries, and more.

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Time to Play: 1-2 hours

Do you love solving mysteries? Are you a Sherlock Holmes fan? This game invites players to step back into the Victorian era and solve a mystery. You’ll be able to solve 10 cases using the tools that come with the game. You’ll use the map of London, casebook, and newspapers for each mystery to make crucial decisions about solving the case.

While deciding which crime scenes to visit and who to interview, you’ll be creating your own course. It’s like a murder mystery event collected into a box so you can do it at home with one other person or a group. It’s immersive and you need to pay attention to details and work together to solve the crimes. 

There are some other games that are similar to this one if you finish all the cases. You can try Unsolved Case Files, which has many cases to solve.

Blokus

Time to Play: 20-30 minutes

Are you a big fan of Tetris? Blokus is a game that looks like a giant Tetris board. You play on a board with 400 squares, 20 rows, and 20 columns. There are four colors of pieces to play with—blue, yellow, green, and red and various sizes and shapes. 

For the two-player version of the game, each player takes two colors. There is also a version called Blokus Duo with just orange and purple pieces. Take turns putting the first piece on the board of each color and then each turn after, the pieces played must touch at least one piece of the same color. The connections should be corner to corner only instead of by the edges. 

The game ends when there are no other plays possible. Each piece you weren’t able to play counts against you as negative points (one for each square on the piece). Whoever has the highest score when the pieces are deducted is the winner.

Carcassonne

Time to Play: ~45 minutes

Carcassonne is a medieval-themed game where players build a landscape through the game. There are different terrain tiles that are drawn by players and placed onto the board. You also have “meeples,” or followers who can claim features, on each of these tiles. Throughout the game, you will be building cities, fields, roads, and cloisters. Each of those items is worth a specific number of points at the end.

This game is considered a gateway game because it’s easy to teach new players how to play and there are no eliminations during the game, so everyone gets to participate the entire time. The original game is good for two to five players, but there are expansion packs you can purchase to increase the player count up to eight.

Jaipur

Time to Play: ~30 minutes

Jaipur is a fun game where you are a powerful trader in the city of Jaipur, India. You are competing to be the best and get an invitation to the Maharaja’s court. It’s a fast-paced card game that involves keeping an eye on your camel herds while working to buy, sell, and exchange at better prices than your competitor.

You want to sell cards in your hand for the best price and the prices decrease throughout the game. But at the same time, you get a better price if you collect and sell a higher quantity of the same product, so it might be better to wait until you have more in your hand. That’s the wild part of the game. It’s a bit about luck and risk.

As one of the top-rated card games for couples, this is a great option for your next date night. You can even pair it with some Indian takeout and have a wonderful date night.

Patchwork

Time to Play: 15-30 minutes

A board game that features quilt-making might seem strange, but this is a great board game for couples. Each player will work on building their own patchwork quilt on a 9×9 game board. In the beginning, all of the patches are laid out at random in a circle. Each player gets five buttons which are the points in the game. Once the game starts, you’ll just want to flex your creative muscles and make a board that is both aesthetically pleasing and high-scoring.

If you love the idea of this game, there are many versions. You can play the Americana, Christmas, or Halloween edition for stive quilt designs. Each time you play, you might see the quilt in a new way, so this is a great game to play over and over again.

Checkers

Time to Play: 10-30+ minutes

Checkers is a classic board game that dates back thousands of years. There are museums that have items resembling checkers boards that date back to 3000 BC. 

The idea is simple, each player has a collection of pieces, one side is light and the other is dark. Each turn, the players go back and forth moving pieces diagonally to an adjacent space that is unoccupied by another piece. If you are next to your opponents’ piece and the space immediately on the other side is open, you can jump over and capture that piece. Once a piece is captured, it’s removed from the game. Once you have no more pieces, the game is over and the last man standing is the winner.

There are a few variations of the game, but in many, if you reach the last row on the opposite side of the board, you can turn your piece into a king and add a crown (one of the removed pieces). This piece can move backward and gives an advantage. Check out more variations and rules on the Checkers Lounge website.

Villainous

Time to Play: ~1 hour

Villainous is a board game created by Ravensburger and features all of your favorite Disney villains. Each player is assigned one bad guy from a Disney classic. The artwork and stories in the game are incredible and they come with collectible game pieces. 

Unlike a typical board game, each player has their own set up with a game board, tokens, a rulebook, and any other items for their villain’s game. You’ll take turns completing tasks and battling heroes to complete your game objective. Each turn, you’ll have the option to slow your opponent down by placing heroes and other obstacles on their game board. 

This game is a great option for Disney fans and once you’ve played the original versions, pick up the expansions which include villains with unique stories. There is an option for Marvel fans as well.

The Game of Life

Time to Play: ~1 hour

The Game of Life is a board game that takes players from high school until retirement. Driving a tiny game piece in the shape of a car over the board, you’ll run into forks in the road where you can make life decisions. Do you want to go to college or get a job right away? Which house do you want to purchase? 

Throughout the game, you’ll collect cardboard pieces that you’ll reveal at the end of the game and each one is worth money and celebrates an accomplishment (options range from winning the Nobel Prize to curing diseases). The game is updated often to stay relevant and modern, but you can find older versions that are pretty funny now.

Like Monopoly, this game is so popular that you can find all kinds of themed versions of the game. From Super Mario Bros to Indiana Jones, there are game boards that will take you on a wild adventure. Have some fun and see what your life will look like as you spin the wheel.

Dominion

Time to Play: ~30 minutes

Dominion is a card game that falls into the category of deck-building games or CCG (collectible card games). This game is very popular and has sold millions of games worldwide since being released in 2008. 

To play, each player starts with a small deck of cards, and each card lists specific details. There are six types of cards in the base set—victory, curse, treasure, action, attack, and reaction. Each game also comes with various kingdoms, so you decide which kingdom you’re going to play. Because of these options, the game can feel different each time you play it. The more expansions you add to the game, the more complex it gets.

If you’ve been wanting to try something a little more complicated with your partner for game night, check out Dominion and see what kind of high-performing deck you’re able to build.

Risk

Time to Play: 1-8 hours

You might read that time to play and think we had a typo, but the game of Risk can take hours. If you want a game that you can pause and come back to, this might be the best option for you. The idea of Risk is to invade your opponent’s land and take it over until you’ve conquered a majority of the map.

The game board is a map and at the beginning, you will draw cards to see which countries you get to start with. Place your collection of defenses and then take turns invading other territories. Each is won with the roll of a dice, so a lot of the game is luck and chance. The back and forth can take hours, so it’s a really fun long game. Just when you think someone is about to lose, they can make a fierce comeback.

Like some of the others on this list, the game also comes in variations based on popular movies and TV shows. You can find Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Game of Thrones, just to name a few.

7 Wonders Duel

Time to Play: ~30 minutes

7 Wonders Duel is the two-player version of the game 7 Wonders. The objective is to acquire cards that provide resources or help advance the development of a civilization. There are a few ways to win, which keeps it interesting. You’ll take turns purchasing resources and gaining cards until you either have collected six of the scientific symbols, reached the opponent’s capital, or finish the 7 wonders.

The game is a little more complicated, but once you see it laid out, it will be easy to follow along with the rules. You’re using strategy to control your civilization and using the science, military, and prestige to accomplish this, but it’s important to choose wisely and not forget about the others because you can easily lose that way.

There are expansion packs to this card game as well if you want to make things more complicated and difficult once you get the hang of the game.

Azul

Time to Play: ~30-45 minutes

This board game was inspired by the Moors, who used blue and white ceramic tiles to decorate. Players of this game are challenged to use tile pieces to embellish the walls of the Royal Palace of Evora. During the game, each player will take turns drafting tiles from suppliers to their board. The scoring happens based on how you place your tiles with extra points given for certain patterns and sets that are completed.

It’s a beautiful game that utilizes strategy and the ability to visualize. You’ll be able to learn the rules quickly because they are simple and you’ll have to just rely on your ability to strategize. Each game will feel totally unique, with the tiles shuffled around, so you’ll be able to enjoy this game for many couples’ game nights.

Parks

Time to Play: ~45 minutes 

Parks is a game for couples who love the outdoors and exploring the National Parks in the United States. The deck of cards that comes with the game is beautifully designed by an artist and there are plenty of fun facts to learn and appreciate. 

The game is divided into four seasons. Each one has cards that will give you certain advantages or make this a little harder depending on what you select. Players will take turns crossing the terrain with their hikers while trying to collect cards for different parks. Everything gets added up at the end to see who the winner is. 

A warning with this game—it might make you want to book a trip to visit a National Park as soon as you’re done playing.

Scrabble

Time to Play: ~30-45 minutes

If you love a good word game, it’s hard to find one more classic than Scrabble. A simple board is laid out with a few special spaces to help increase your points. It comes with a bag filled with small wooden squares, each one has one letter on it.

You start the game by having each player choose 7 tiles from the bag and work to figure out how to make a word from those letters to play on the board. After the first word is on the board, you’ll use the letters in your hand to branch off of letters on the board to make new words.

Scrabble is a fun game to help expand your vocabulary. If you both love the game, play it all the time and keep a running scoreboard. 

The Hygge Game

Time to Play: As long as you want to play!

This is a great first date activity or Valentine’s day gift for your significant other. It’s not necessarily a board game, but it’s packaged like one. It’s actually an activity that uses conversation starters. With more than 300 cards, you can pick one or two to chat about over a dinner date or you can curl up on the couch and work through a big stack of them on a date night.

Hygge is a Danish word that describes a cozy environment and enjoying the good things in life. The Hygge Game encourages cozy conversations with people that you care about the most. You’ll get to know each other by sharing stories and happy memories from your life. 

Pandemic

Time to Play: ~45 minutes

This game came out well before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, but it will feel pretty relevant today. The idea is that you’re working together as experts to prevent the world from completely succumbing to a pandemic. By the end of the game, you’ve either completely eradicated the virus and come up with a cure or vaccine, or you will have lost.

During the game, you take turns traveling between cities to stop breakouts, treat infected populations, discover a cure, and build research stations. Each player will draw a card before the game that will assign them a specific role and each has specific powers or abilities.

Play this game with your partner and save the world and humanity from a pandemic on your next game night. Cooperative games are great when you don’t want to be competitive with each other but instead, you want to work together.

Fog of Love

Time to Play: 1-2 hours

A board game with a theme of love and building relationships has to make the list of best board games for couples. Fog of Love is a two-player game where you will create two characters who then meet, fall in love, and face the challenge of making the relationship work. 

There are traits, occupations, and situations that you will pick up and have to navigate through together. There will be some rounds where you don’t have a happy ending, but you’ll have a blast playing out a romantic comedy in a game.

Thanks to all the combinations of scenarios, there are endless possibilities for how the game will turn out. You will be entertained by this game over and over again.

Codenames: Duet

Time to Play: ~15-30 minutes

Codenames has been one of the most popular family games in the last decade. Now, there is a two-player version as well, so you can play during your couples game night even with just the two of you. 

With the Duet version, you’re still giving one-word clues to get someone to identify your agents on the table. The difference is that instead of working against each other, you’re working together. You’ll lay out 25 cards in a 5×5 grid and then draw one key card and put it in the holder so each player sees one side of the card. The grids will have some overlap, but each person will still have some areas that overlap, but there will be some hidden assassins for each player as well. Try and reveal all the agents before getting any assassins to win the game.

This is a great variation of a popular game so you don’t need any bigger group in order to play. You’ll work on your communication and teamwork as well while playing because you’re on the same team.

Hive

Time to Play: ~20 minutes

Hive is an easy game to play anywhere. It’s made up of 22 pieces, half are black and half are white. Each piece has one of five creatures on it. They each have a unique way of moving around the board. The game starts with the first piece being laid down. 

The object of the game is to completely surround your opponent’s queen bee while blocking your own queen bee from being surrounded. You’ll need to change up your strategy based on what your opponent is doing. You’ll have a blast facing off to protect your queen.

Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle

Time to Play: ~60 minutes

If cooperative board games are appealing to you, try this board game that is perfect for any Harry Potter fans and gamers. 

The game utilizes the four main characters from Harry Potter and you pick one and then work with the other players to beat each game. There are seven games that coincide with the seven books. Each game gets more difficult as tougher scenarios and characters get introduced. 

If you want to make it even more difficult for two players, you can each play two characters for the whole game. Each round will vary, depending on how the cards come up, so you’re able to play over and over again. Pair it up with a Harry Potter movie for a completely themed date night.

Yahtzee

Time to Play: ~30 minutes

Yahtzee is the most popular dice party game. You can play with two players or add on friends and family all the way up to 10 players. Grab the scorecard and a cup with five dice and start rolling. Each player is competing to roll certain combinations and score higher than their opponents. With three tries, it may sound easy to roll a three-of-a-kind or full house, but it’s tricky to decide when to count certain rolls in each category.

The beauty of this dice game is that you can play it anywhere with very little space. Just remember that it can get a little loud because most people can’t help but yell out YAHTZEE when they roll five-of-a-kind in one roll to get the toughest item on the board.

Jenga

Time to Play: 5-20 minutes

Jenga is a tabletop game with tons of small blocks of wood stacked three-wide on top of each other to form a tower. Each person takes their turn and removes one block from the tower, somewhere below the top two rows of the tower. The trick is that you don’t want to be the one to knock it down. 

The game is about smooth moves and proper selection of the block to pull out. You’ll have to be so careful to pick something that won’t cause everything to come crashing down. Once you successfully pull out a block, you also have to then add it to the top of the tower while keeping it standing.

A fun way to level up this game is to find a bar or outdoor space that has a giant Jenga game. Bigger blocks don’t necessarily make it easier, it just makes it a lot louder, but it can be a very fun activity.

Dawn of the Zeds

Time to Play: ~90-120 minutes

Dawn of the Zeds was created by Victory Points. It centers around a town called Farmingdale. There is a virus spreading that is turning people into zombies, also called “Zeds” which stands for Zombie Epidemic Disease. 

Using teamwork, you’ll want to help save the citizens of Farmingdale by destroying the Zeds, finding a cure, and saving the area and the people who live there. Once you beat the game a few times, you can add in the expansion packs to change it up a bit and make it more difficult. 

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