Another gift I need to buy for someone. 
They already have Lost Cities, Jaipur, Patchwork and play Cribbage.
30 year old players. Suggestions?
Battleship!
Connect Four.
Boggle.
^^True! I guess I’m looking for something a little more mature/challenging or “newer” in the game market.
Bananagrams
Cards and a book of games to play like double solitare, crazy 8s; Uno cards (and there are others on the rack with Uno cards that are 2 person games - even Go Fish! (Go old school)
I threw Codenames Duet in my Amazon cart.
Anyone familiar with Carcassonne? It has great reviews.
Wait, there’s a two-player Codenames?
I’ve heard good thing about Legends of Andor,
Are they experienced game players? The number one most popular game at Board Game Geek is the wonderful, fantastic, addictive co-op game Gloomhaven.
In Gloomhaven, each player chooses a character: a woman Scoundrel who loves to stab baddies in the back, a trickster rat Mindthief who manipulates enemies, a big Brute who likes to bash, a female wizard who attacks monsters from afar with her dazzling spells, a lumbering earth-friendly Cragheart who throws massive boulders at the foes, sometimes hitting their friends by mistake.
The characters face a series of scenarios where they travel through dangerous dungeons and other monster-infested areas, gathering up treasure and killing the bad guys. As they progress, their characters become more powerful and able to do more actions, but the monsters get stronger too. Eventually, a character has to (sadly) retire, but the player gets to reveal a new, hidden character with new, surprising abilities that they can play in new scenarios.
The game’s core mechanism is simple yet brilliant: each player has a small hand of cards, and plays two of them each round. When all her cards are played, the player gets back all but one of them; it is lost. In addition, when some cards are played a certain powerful way, they are lost. This is the timer: once all cards are lost, the character is exhausted, and if all characters are exhausted before the goal is achieved, the scenario is lost. Each character has a different set of cards with different abilities.
The fun of Gloomhaven is developing your character over several scenarios, while killing monsters, and discovering new scenarios, new monsters, new characters and other new content. You get attached to your character as she becomes more powerful and you learn how to use her unique abilities. Then she retires. You miss her, but soon you become fond of your new character’s new abilities.
One thing I love about Gloomhaven is the respect to women. Half of the characters are female. None of the female characters are depicted as scantily clothed overendowed Barbies; they’re all working mercenaries, like the male characters.
There’s a lot to love about Gloomhaven. When we got it, we didn’t play any other game for a year. A year? Yeah, Gloomhaven has a lot of content. A lot. The game weighs 20 pounds, and none of it is irrelevant.
You can’t just pick up Gloomhaven. You have to spend some time punching out all the pieces, reading the rulebook, and ideally watching a video or two about how to play. But it’s so worth it.
If you want a lighter game, we enjoy Machi Koro and Transamerica.
I love Labyrinth. I’m in my 50s.
^^Wow, that’s a game! I know someone else who would enjoy that one!
Yes, apparently there IS a two person CodeNames!
Keep suggestions coming - I’ll check them all out later!
Dominion is by far and away my favorite game. The fun thing about it is that you never have to play with the same set of cars, so each game is different for a long time. When they start seeming too similar there are many, many expansion boxes.
Not a board game but quite fun: backgammon
Backgammon is totally a board game! It’s one of the Ur-boardgames!
@mathmom
I didn’t know that. I have often thought board games need to be a bit more “wordy” or “looked” more complicated ?
@mathmom, have you tried Spirit Island, Pandemic or Gloomhaven? Wondering what you think of those games if you’ve tried them.
Haven’t read entire thread, but I like Blokus a lot. Can be 2, 3, or 4 players.
Our current favorite quick two player (card) game is Hanabi. Cooperative and fun. Wingspan is absolutely amazing, and can be two-player. But it’s pretty expensive right now since it won this year’s Spiel des Jahres, and they haven’t been able to keep production up with the demand.
Wingspan is so gorgeous, too.
Another great medium-weight two-person game is Forbidden Island. Your team is on an island. You need to move around from place to place, but as you do, the island is sinking beneath you. Will your team grab the last treasure and take the rescue helicopter home, or will you sink beneath the waves?
Beautiful artwork and pieces, and a fun co-op mechanic. This game is a slightly more complex than lost cities. Not much more.