Short (< 1 hour) 2-player games to play during lunch
As a reference, I found this thread from 2019. There are several good recommendations, but I'd like to see if there's something new since then.
When I'm homeworking, my wife and I like to play short board games during lunch time. We're very casual players, and have Hive with all extensions, Onitama, and Jaipur. We both like Jaipur because it's more light-hearted and easygoing (and maybe non abstract), but it takes some time and space to setup. Hive and Onitama are much quicker to setup and play, but require more focus than I have during lunch :)
We'll probably buy Hanabi or Patchwork next, to get something cooperative. I'd also like to try another easy deck building game, but I have no idea what to get.
So, what do you like to play during lunch?
Lost Cities
Azul
Sorry!
That last on is going to seem weird, but sometimes you need a simple distraction, and Sorry! is perfect. Easy to set up, quick games, some strategy but not too much, game moves fast, most games are close.
Seconding Azul. I have the mini version and it's perfect - portable, quick to set up, easy to learn, and good for two players.
For something to de-stress, I'd recommend Tranquility, which we got a lot of use from recently. It's co-operative and doesn't require a lot of focus. There are some expansions included to make the game more difficult if needed. Not to mention the design is really beautiful.
I like Forbidden Island for co-op. My sister and I play it together (and you can add one or two more players if you like to expand your playing group sometimes). Setup is relatively quick but it requires a medium amount of space, I'd say. None of our playthroughs have ever gone near to an hour of time.
Star Realms is very fun.
seconding star realms, and Hero Realms by the same developer has Co-op options + different starter decks and an online mobile app too! I really enjoy it a lot
Not the first time I read about it, I'll definitely check it out. Thanks!
Red7 is a lot of fun with 2 people! It's a game, similar to Fluxx, where the win condition changes. It can take a couple hands to get the rules down but once you're familiar it plays quickly.
Burgle Bros is a co-op heist game for 1-4 people. Might push your <1 hour a bit, but there's an iPad app that removes all the physical setup which helps.
Canopy is a set collecting style game that's for 1-4 players as well.
Shushi Go is another set collecting game but the twist is you rotate hands every turn. Not as fun with 2 but still playable.
Bananagrams is basically scrabble without the board.
Bohnanza is another set collecting style game that has a two player version as well.
edit: Penny Arcade: The Game - Gamers vs. Evil is a fun deck builder. They have a sequel as well.
This comment contains an attentive hobbyist's recommendations! Try ^ these games! These are not the entry-level games for people who've never ventured deeper, nor are they obscure deep cuts. This is a well-refined list of tried-and-true filler type games. I especially echo Bohnanza and Red7. I also like Mottainai and Innovation, published by the same house as Red7.
I also wanted to recommend No Thanks But that one requires 3 players, so didn't count (but I'm tossing it in this reply because it's just that good).
Also, thanks for the kind words. I have stacks of games but hardly anyone to play them with so I end up trying 2 player games with my wife quite often.
Fluxx isn't so good as a two-player game. It's much better for larger groups. In my experience, the peak is about 4 or 5 players. Too few, and it's not as much fun. Too many, and it becomes tedious between turns.
Targi is great.
It's not too difficult but there's a good amount of back and forth going on with a healthy dose of strategy. The setup of the board is very quick too, which is what you'll be looking for when you have less than an hour. Game by game runs are different enough to stay fresh for a while.
You already mentioned Patchwork. It's not cooperative but it's quick to set up and is a great way to put your mind to something puzzle-y during your break, so I'll second that option.
Fungi is a really great two-player game (I think there's another version called Morels that's more or less the same but with different art, so go with what's easier to find obviously). I don't remember offhand how long it took us to play our first time but it wasn't a super long game.
Tiny Epic Galaxies is quite fun, easy to set up and can be done in 30 minutes. You also spend no time counting points at the end.
I also like 7 Wonders Duel and Splendor Duel, but both of these can drag out a bit more, depending on the players.
My partner and I have got a lot of mileage out of Azul (mini), Race for the Galaxy (triple digit plays at least), and Splendor Duel. I'd say any of those games are great lunchtime specials that should all take well under an hour.
These are very good reccs. Race for the Galaxy is the best game in this thread, and all three of these are straight competitions with much subtlety!!
I've never tried the duel variant, but regular Splendor is great as a two-player game that gives you the option of up to four players if desired.
Maybe have a look at Rummikub, quick to set up and thoughtful to play
A bit more strategic, but Race for the Galaxy and 7 Wonders Duel have both been great lunchtime games for me in the past. It'll take some time to get used to each, but once you have the rules down the games can blitz by while still being strategic and satisfying
Skull King is a wonderful pirate-themed Spades-like, but not as punishing for missing your target. Assess how good your hand is, bet on how many tricks you'll take, and then try to over/under each hand correctly to your goal over 10 rounds. You could convince me to play this any time, I love it.
My wife and I will bring Monopoly Deal places and grind out like 11 games of it in a row if we know we're waiting for things. Think Monopoly but crunched down into like 5-10 minutes of gameplay, still very luck-based but when it only takes a few minutes it's addictive.
Spellcaster is a fun, quick game where you take two actions per turn to try and find a strategy to outpace your opponent via a deck of spells that all do something different and while vying for the same board space.
If you're looking for something more crunchy, Puzzle Strike is a great deckbuilding (bag-of-chips-building) game influenced by fighting games and pvp puzzle games like Tetris Attack. You get a set of gems each turn that cause you to lose the game if you have 10+ at end of turn, but you can send them to your opponent - so you carefully teeter on having as many as you can and shoving them back to your opponent with combos. Ton of replayability with different characters.
Or, get real good at Dominion and crank out as many games as you can.
Thanks for reminding me about Dominion.
Kahuna and Schotten Totten are both reasonably quick and easy (maybe 20 min for the former, and 10 for the latter), once you know the rules.
There are more complicated variants for each, but we tend to just play they base version
Hanabi is mine and my wife's favorite game to play with just the two of us. We've also recently been introducing friends to Ship Shape which is really quick (15-20 min games at the very most) but is fun. We played it the other night with just the two of us (which is the same as the full game but with a dummy third player who is on auto-placement essentially).
Turncoats (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/352238/turncoats) works but has some caveats-
The physical game is expensive as hell. I own a copy because i love it but you can proxy it with some loose change and paper.
It is the kind of game that can drag if you have someone who insists on trying to math out every single move.
It is the kind of game where there's a lot of bluffing, so if people get annoyed with losing because of that it's maybe not the best.
All that said, it's really quite fun. Maybe not an every day thing, but good to have in rotation.
It’s not super balanced at two players because if you see one person get an early lead, it’s unlikely to swing back… but I really like King of Tokyo and the spin-offs! Quick to set up, turns are fairly fast, and there’s not much analysis paralysis because the actions are pretty simple
I recommend Tournament of Towers... Part dexterity, part strategy, part luck, all very very fun. It might get messy... If your playspace can't handle some plastic pieces about the size of a walnut toppling off the table, maybe it isn't a great fit...
Looks fun! Should be nice to play with kids too
I really like Skyline! It's very fast and a bunch of fun.
Would you accept a computer game that you can play in the same room? Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is fun and I think each round is timed (5 minutes?) you can get a couple rounds in. It's been a bit since I've played it, but I'll give you the gist.
One person has the game open on their computer and the other person can access an instructional document on their phone/tablet/laptop, but doesn't look at the computer screen. The person reading the document has to guide the person on the computer through diffusing an explosive (which wire to cut, which buttons to press, etc.) - so the person reading instructions can't see the bomb, and the person diffusing the bomb doesn't have the instructions. I played it a couple times and it was fun! You can play it with multiple people having copies of the instructions too - you'd think that would make it easier, but it was pretty chaotic when I tried it!
I think you could conceivably play this with a couple of tablets (or phones but the screen would be pretty small, I think) or just one tablet and you could print out the manual. It's a fun game for sure. Multiple people can make it easier, but it some ways it can make it more difficult, too.
I really like the idea, but I'd rather have something without a screen. Thanks for the suggestion though, I'll add the game to my wishlist :)
I've had an opportunity to play some 2-player games recently (which isn't common for me).
Apart from Targi, which someone else has already mentioned, I'd also like to suggest Royal Visit.
The player mat is a single column of 17 spaces aligned so that the end points are in front of each player. There are five pieces to move: one King, two Guards, one Wizard, and one Jester. The idea is to move the King into your castle, at your end of the player mat. However, he must stay between the two Guards - so you have to move one Guard into your castle before you can bring the King into your castle. Meanwhile, the other player is trying to move the King towards their castle. It's a virtual tug-of-war.
You need to play cards to move the pieces. They're simple in principle: most cards nominate a piece to move, and the number of spaces to move that piece. On your turn, you play one or more cards to move a specific piece the appropriate number of spaces (only one piece can be moved on your turn, but you can move it multiple times).
Meanwhile, the Wizard and the Jester, which can also be moved, allow you to perform special actions, instead of taking a normal turn.
The whole game is time-limited. When you have played through the deck of cards twice (which usually takes less than 30 minutes), the game enters a sudden-death stage which can be won with a single correct move by either player. This just requires you having the King somewhere on your half of the track (your "duchy").
There's also a secondary way to win, involving a Crown counter on its own parallel track.
And it's quite challenging! The strategy involved is surprisingly complicated. It's easy to learn, short to play, and provides a good intellectual work-out. I highly recommend it.
Hanabi is great fun, though it can be a lot of thinking.
My partner and I had several months where we would play Civilization 5 together during lunch. It doesn't fit your 45 min boundary, but it is turn based and therefore interruptible.
Odin's Ravens is right up your alley! Takes about 20 minutes from setup to completion.
If you have a tablet or laptop, or even a phone, you can use my PWA for Jaipur to speed up the setup.
https://oniony.com/boardgames/pinkcity/app/
There should be an option in the browser to install the app to your homescreen, then it'll work offline too.
The app replaces the chits, but you'll still use the card deck. The app doesn't enforce rules, so you can add chits and remove them again just like in real life.
End a game by moving the camel token. It'll keep a tally of games won with crown icons by each player. To reset just refresh the page (reload the app if installed).
Herd mentality is listed as "best: 7-8 players", and Spyfall as "best: 6 players". How do they play for 2 players?
I haven't actually played it (despite owning it, which is quite embarrassing), but Star Realms always comes up in lists of two-player games.
Set is a lot of fun and very quick
This one?
Yes, though be aware that people can have wildly different natural capacities for recognizing the patterns in Set. For some people it's an easy game of intuitively perceiving patterns, for some it's a mental grind akin to long division.
In my admittedly few observances of multiple groups playing this game, women tend to beat men in Set with an almost uncanny reliability. The pattern recognition is seemingly stronger in women.
Yes. And I know you mentioned that you just play with your wife on lunch breaks. But there is a real joy in teaching someone this game and seeing them "get it"
My partner and I have enjoyed these couch co-op games:
Cat Quest (I and II) - very cute RPG with fun combat
Samurai Warriors 5 - easy hack-n-slash action, characters got a major glow-up since Samurai Warriors 4
Vampire Survivors - fast-paced bullet hell where it's easy to feel super powerful
EDIT: Sorry, I misread and missed board games :)) My recommendation is Tokaido. It's not actually co-op, it's competitive, but it doesn't really feel like it since you're not exactly fighting each other, you're both just on the same road traveling through Japan as tourists in the Meiji era. It feels nice and chill!