Dixit is a favorite game in my house, but we can’t always find the minimum three players to play. So my daughter came up with a two player cooperative variant that I think is even more fun than the original. It uses the standard pieces and cards from the original Dixit game, and takes about 20 minutes to play. Here’s how it works:

Instead of competing to score the most points, the players work together to score 4 points (or 5 for a harder difficulty) before running out of cards. The players score points by having one player give “clue” cards to the other player, to get them to guess which of the 6 cards on the board is the “secret” card.

Players alternate taking turns as the active player. The active player deals out 6 cards into the 6 card slots on the Dixit board. They then choose a card slot tile with a number on it to represent the “secret” card they want the other player to pick. They place this tile face down on the table.

Once the active player has selected the secret card. They may draw up to 7 cards from the deck, and select as many of these cards as they like to represent “clue” cards. These cards are given to the other player, and the rest are discarded. The active player is not allowed to give any other verbal or non-verbal hints or clues about what the secret card might be. The active player may also choose to give no clue cards, if giving any of the available cards would simply misdirect the other player.

The other player then uses the clue cards to guess the secret card. If they guess correctly, the players score a point. If they have enough points, they win! Otherwise, all the cards played on this turn are discarded, and the other player becomes the active player. Use one of the player score tokens to keep score on the point track on the Dixit board.

If the players do not have enough cards to play the 6 initial cards plus at least one clue card at the start of a turn, the game is over immediately. If the active player runs out of cards while drawing clue cards, the game ends after the current turn.

I actually like this variation much more than the original Dixit rules. I really like cooperative games, and this plays faster and simpler than the original, while still keeping the fuzzy-pattern matching that makes the original game fun.