Guide to Gaming: Two's Company, Three's a Crowd--Good Games for Two (and More)

This is a gaming blog. I don't think I need to sell you on the pleasures of gaming. We all know this simple truth: life is hard sometimes, and a good game with good friends is good medicine.

Of course, finding friends to play games isn't always the easiest. There are the occasional (or even weekly) game nights, but the friends most readily at hand are likely found in the home. The friend I play games with the most (and also my favorite gaming partner) is my wife, but finding a good two-player game can be difficult, especially if you want to maximize your gaming dollar. I don't often buy games that don't have a two-player mode (unless they are obvious group games, like The Resistance), and a good two-player mode is often what keeps games hitting the table and off my BGG trade list. Since I've had some false starts and some successes, I thought I'd put together a brief guide for others who might be in the same boat.

What follows is a list (with some commentary) of good multiplayer games that are fun with two to help you get the most out of your gaming dollar. (I've also added a brief list without commentary of some two-player-only games that are worth your time.)

Let's Build A Tableau Together (A Guide to Tableau Building)

Categorizing mechanics can be a tricky thing as we recently saw in a series of articles about whether or not Settlers of Catan is a worker placement game (Here's the Point and Counterpoint to get you caught up).  Rigid definitions aside, it’s helpful to know what type of games are out there and once you’ve identified what you like there’s a multitude of other games that share similar mechanics. We’ll be picking out some of the most popular mechanics (or at least our favorites) and exploring how they work, what games use them successfully, and why we love them. This week let’s take a look at Tableau Building.

Guide to Gaming: When is it time to cull my collection?

We are living in the golden age of board gaming. More and more games are being released. More and more games are being purchased.

More and more games are sitting on players' shelves, left unplayed.

When is it time to cull your collection?

iSlaytheDragon's Game of the Year 2012

There's nothing we here at iSlaytheDragon enjoy more than talking about the games we love. Reliving classic moments, discussing strategies or favorite mechanisms, teasing each other about the overabundance of theme (or distinct lack thereof) in the games that hit the table most frequently.

While our pick for Game of the Year of 2011 was unanimous and almost instantaneous, this year it took a bit of discussion. Which is great, because there were a lot of great games that came out this year, and we got to play a bunch of them! We wish we could pick all of our favorites for Game of the Year, but that would make the award pointless. In the end, we decided that one game stood out, excelling in all categories, just barely edging out the competition.

To lay out some of the details behind the choice, we only looked at games that released in 2012, give or take a few months back into 2011. In order to be chosen as the iSlaytheDragon Game of the Year, we had to have played and reviewed the game ourselves. And to make our final choice, we looked at a variety of categories, including gameplay, mechanisms, component quality, replayability, and fun factor. Of course every choice and every rating we make is a judgment call on our parts; if you disagree, that's fine. Feel free to share your favorite game of 2012 in the comments.

Read on for the moment you've all been waiting for. And the winner is...

Rebuilding Another Medieval French City--In Style (a review of Tournay)

I know: the title of this review is probably not making you very enthusiastic about Tournay (another Medieval French Belgian town needs to be rebuilt?!), the leaner younger brother to geek darling Troyes , but hear me out. Tournay is different within the Medieval city-building genre, and it's significantly different from Troyes. While it's true that Troyes is more clever and maybe more enjoyable (that's debatable), Tournay remains in my collection while Troyes passed quietly out--unwept, unhonored, and unsung. Why is that? And why are comparisons to Troyes most likely inappropriate for this game? Check out my comments below!