Two-player board games for couples

Zenith

In the far-off future, the solar system is inhabited by 3 races: Humans, Robots, and Animods. Civilization runs off of Zenithium, a clean and renewable energy source, but coexistence is a struggle. Your goal: unite the planets to gain control of the senate! Players will struggle to gain Influence on the 5 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter. This Influence is represented by discs in different colors. In Zenith, there are 3 victory conditions: Absolute victory: Gain 3 Influence discs from the same planet. Democratic victory: Gain 4 Influence discs from strictly different planets. Popular victory: Gain 5 Influence discs (from any planets). The game ends immediately as soon as one player meets 1 of these three conditions. —description from the publisher

Sky Team

Sky Team is a co-operative game, exclusively for two players, in which you play a pilot and co-pilot at the controls of an airliner. Your goal is to work together as a team to land your airplane in different airports around the world. To land your plane, you need to silently assign your dice to the correct spaces in your cockpit to balance the axis of your plane, control its speed, deploy the flaps, extend the landing gear, contact the control tower to clear your path, and even have a little coffee to improve your concentration enough to change the value of your dice. If the aircraft tilts too much and stalls, overshoots the airport, or collides with another aircraft, you lose the game...and your pilot's license...and probably your life. From Montreal to Tokyo, each airport offers its own set of challenges. Watch out for the turbulence as this could end up being a bumpy ride! —description from the publisher

Lost Cities

Lost Cities is a card game in the Kosmos two-player series. The game originally consisted of a single deck of cards of rank 2–10 in five different colors with three special "handshakes" ("HS" in scoring examples below) in each suit, but as of 2018 the game now includes six colored suits, with the sixth color being optional for gameplay. A game board is included to organize discarded cards and help players organize their card collections. The object of the game is to gain points by mounting profitable archaeological expeditions to the different sites represented by the colored suits of cards. On a player's turn, they must first play one card, either to an expedition or by discarding it to the color-appropriate discard pile, then draw one card, either from the deck or from the top of a discard pile. Cards played to expeditions must be in ascending order, but they need not be consecutive. Handshakes are considered lower than a 2 and represent investments in an expedition. Thus, if you play a red 4, you may play any other red card higher than a 4 on a future turn but may no longer play a handshake, the 2, or the 3. The game continues in this fashion with players alternating turns until the final card is taken from the deck. The rest of the cards in hand are then discarded and players score their expeditions. Each expedition that has at least one card played into it must be scored. Cards played into an expedition are worth their rank in points, and handshakes count as a multiplier against your final total; one handshake doubles an expedition's value, while two handshakes triples that value and three handshakes quadruple it. Expeditions start at a value of -20, so you must play at least 20 points of cards into an expedition in order to make a profit. If you are left with a negative value and have a handshake, the multiplier still applies. A 20-point bonus is awarded to every expedition with at least eight cards played into it. A complete game of Lost Cities lasts three matches, with scores for each match being added together. Scoring example 1: An expedition has a 2,3,7,8,10 for a total of 30. This expedition is worth 10 total points: 30 plus the initial -20. Scoring example 2: An expedition has 2 HS, and 4,5,6,7,8,10 for a total of 40. This expedition is worth 80 total points: 40 points for cards, plus the initial -20, ×3 for the two multipliers, plus the 20-pt bonus for playing 8+ cards. Scoring example 3: An expedition has 1 HS, and 4,6,7 for a total of 17. This expedition is worth -6 total points: 17 plus the initial -20, ×2 for the multiplier.

Jaipur

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.

Watergate

In Watergate, one player assumes the role of a [Washington Post] journalist, while the other embodies the Nixon administration — each with a unique set of cards. To win, the Nixon administration must build up enough momentum to make it to the end of the presidential term, whereas the journalist must gather enough evidence to connect two informants directly to the President. Of course, the administration will do all in its power to smother any evidence. A history of Watergate is included with the game! —description from the publisher

Splendor Duel

Confront your rival guild in a race for victory. Take Gem and Pearl tokens from the common board, then purchase cards, gather bonuses, royal favors, and prestige. Discover new twists and strategic opportunities derived from Splendor, the original best-selling game. Acquire cards with impressive powers, take advantage of special Privileges, and fight over scarce access to Pearls. Splendor Duel is a two-player only standalone game based on Splendor that retains some of the main gameplay mechanisms of that design, while being a bit more complex, dynamic, interactive, rich, tense, and mean. The game features a main board shared by both opponents, card powers, and three victory conditions.