The Fox in the Forest





Game details Designer: Joshua Buergel

Publisher: Renegade Game Studios

Players: 2

Age: 10+

Playing time: 30 minutes

Price: $14.91 on Amazon Joshua BuergelRenegade Game Studios10+30 minutes

If you've played games for a while, you probably know that trick-taking games rarely fare well with two players. But that's the magic of The Fox in the Forest, a wonderful trick-taker designed specially for two.

This is a standard trick-taking game, where players each lay down one card per round (called a "trick") and the highest card wins that trick. If you can't "follow suit," you can play a card from any other suit—and one suit per round is always a "trump" suit that tops any other suit whenever it appears. In most of these games, you want to win as many tricks as possible with your hand of cards, though here it's more complex. Win 0-3 tricks in a hand and you gain six points; win 7-9 tricks and you gain 6 points; but win 10-13 and you gain nothing at all (you were "greedy"). So the game is about managing your hand to win either no tricks or a moderate amount of tricks. What you absolutely don't want is 4-6 tricks or more than 10.

The other wrinkle is that some cards in each suit have special powers. Every three, for instance, allows whoever played it to change the trump suit right there in the middle of the hand. Every 11 card forces your opponent to play their highest card of that suit, while each seven card gives the winner of the trick one point for each seven in the trick. Ones will usually lose you the trick—but let you play first for the next trick. Taken together, these cards provide plenty of strategic value to each hand.

Play continues hand by hand until one play has amassed 21 points.

This one plays quick (30 minutes or less), looks great, and is cheap to pick up. If you're looking for a good trick-taker for two, check out The Fox in the Forest.

Lost Cities

Game details Designer: Reiner Knizia

Publisher: Kosmos

Players: 2

Age: 10+

Playing time: 30 minutes

Price: $17.00 on Amazon Reiner KniziaKosmos10+30 minutes

The best two-player games are titles that could only exist as two-player experiences. Lost Cities is one of those games.

The game is nominally about explorers setting off on expeditions to discover mythological cities lost to time. What it's really about, though, is two players trying to score points through careful hand management, a judicious amount of luck-pressing, and knowing when to cut your losses.

Players set off on expeditions by playing cards—which come in five different colors and are numbered 2-10—in ascending order on their side of a central board. When you play a card to start an expedition, you're putting yourself on the clock—committing to a color puts you at a 20-point deficit until you can claw your way back to the positives. Cards score their face value, so you'll need to play three or four cards before you break even. "Handshake" cards can be played before you commit to a suit and act as multipliers for your score in that color, both positive and negative. Instead of playing a card, you can discard a card you don't want, but be careful—your opponent can grab your discards on their turn.

There's a bit of luck involved, but that's part of Lost Cities' draw. The only real downside is that its scoring can be a bit opaque and mathy, which is at odds with the game's simple, elegant ruleset. Still, there's a ton going on in this little game, and we highly recommend it. You can also check out the excellent iPhone version for $3.99.

Targi

Game details Designer: Andreas Steiger

Publisher:Z-Man Games

Players: 2

Age: 12+

Playing time: 60 minutes

Currently out of print

Targi is Tuareg for "terrific." (Not really.) This pleasing two-player, worker-placement, trading and acquisition game builds its rectangular board out of cards: the outer edge is made up of the same cards on every game, while the inner cards change routinely. In each round, players alternate placing three wooden markers on edge cards, each of which grants resources (dates, salt, etc.) or abilities, and other players are shut out of those particular cards on that round. So far, so... usual.

But Targi's twist is that each player also takes the actions of the cards located at the grid positions where these wooden markers intersect. So on each turn, you're angling not just for the actual cards you claim but for those middle cards where the x- and y-coordinates of your placements meet. While the outer cards stay put, the inner cards are taken and can be added to one's tableau, where they grant victory points at the end of the game. (Arranging these cards in various sets can earn bonus points.)

If it all sounds a bit dry thematically, that's because it is—unless you really have a thing for dates, salt, and guys on camels. But this is a wonderful piece of strategy gaming, too; Board Game Geek currently ranks it in the top-100 strategy games of all time. Also in Targi's favor is that it doesn't go on forever; the game has a defined number of turns as you advance a "robber" token around the edge of the board, and it should be complete in about an hour.

Finding good, quick two-player games that aren't "light" can be hard, but Targi does an admirable job of providing a slightly heftier, more strategic experience for a pair of players.

(The game is currently out of print, but you can play online for free.)