Oldest son just introduced me to Radlands - a card game middle son “found,” so 'tis at least popular among some 20 something “kids.”
It’s a two player game (nice to have some of those now that H and I are empty nesting again).
It’s cards, but not Ace - King cards, rather “play” cards giving you people and actions. It’s 80% strategy and 20% luck of draw on those cards. You start with three “bases” and the winner is the first to destroy their opponent’s three. Like most newer games, there’s a little bit of time needed learning what each card does, then some time playing learning the strategy, and then the games are quick + fun.
You won’t like it if you don’t like new (style) strategy games. You probably will if you enjoy them esp if you like newer games like Terraforming Mars. Unlike TM, there’s no board to this game. You just lay cards on a table. It’s also tons quicker than Mars.
I’m not fond of buying via Amazon vs a local game store, but here’s an Amazon link with more info:
I don’t think it’s that new but we’ve been enjoying Valeria. It’s all cards, no board. You pick a character and based on what it takes for that character to collect points you can buy monsters, citizens and domains. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but fun and not too hard to learn to play, harder to learn to keep track of things.
Not new but my favorite game has been Code Names. It was possible to play it with two players but took some time and rule bending to do it.
Now they make Code Names Duet meant for two players which is well worth owning in addition to Code Names.
Interesting. We may have to give that a try as we love both the original (with the Leaders + Cities Expansions) and 7 Wonders Architects (a totally different game, but recognizable elements from the original).