Best board games for couples

7 Wonders Duel is a tight two-player game that challenges you to build the most advanced civilization possible. It’s a condensed version of its bigger sister, 7 Wonders, but it’s no less entertaining for having shrunk.

The core gameplay of 7 Wonders Duel sees you taking turns to choose cards from a limited central collection. You’ll then play cards (and maybe spend some coin) to construct buildings, which in turn grant you resources and other various benefits. There are three ways to win– steamroll your partner in a military victory, acquire all six science tokens, or have the most victory points when three rounds have played out.

You’ll have to work your way to the resources you most desperately need, so you better hope your significant other doesn’t snap them up first. We may recommend this game, but we aren’t responsible for any arguments that ensue. The randomness of the game may feel a little mean at times, but 7 Wonders Duel makes up for these minor annoyances by offering tons of variation and replayability in each game.

Read our 7 Wonders Duel review.

Azul is an extremely tactile drafting game that casts you and your opponent as rival interior decorators, vying to impress the King of Portugal with intricate mosaics. You’ll take turns choosing your desired tiles from shared pools, then using your picks wisely to create the highest-scoring patterns you can on a five-by-five grid.

Better patterns mean more points, and the player with the most points wins. It’s quite the epitome of the ‘easy to learn, hard to master’ mantra that so many modern board games strive for.

On top of all this, Azul is a feast for the senses. The gorgeous, patterned tiles are endlessly pleasing to the eye, clack together satisfyingly in their bag, and give the game a calming energy. Even when you’re losing, you can still enjoy the thoughtful process of arranging beautiful tiles – and cheekily drafting those you know your other half is keen to grab.

This low-stress experience might not feel strategic enough for some, and this may limit how many times you bring it to your table. Regardless, Azul is the perfect accessible board game for casual nights in.

Read our full Azul review.

Codenames: Duet is a frequent favorite for many couples, especially those shopping for cheap board games. It’s a staple thanks to its snappy and simple gameplay, which is easy for a board-gaming newbie to pick up.

As in the original Codenames, players face a grid of random code words. You and your partner both have a secret card that shows which words represent your allied field agents, which are innocent bystanders, and which is the deadly assassin that’ll lose you the game.

You must work together to identify all field agents, but you can only give each other single-word clues to drop hints. Plus, with only nine turns to find all 15 of your compatriots, you’ll need to hint at multiple cards with a single clue, linking the disparate cards together with whatever tenuous connection you think best.

The united effort to win, as well as the fun wordplay puzzle mechanic, makes Codenames: Duet a winning choice for any pair. However, with such simple gameplay, you might not want to spend every date night speaking in code.

Expansive and immersive, Frosthaven is a lot like playing a DnD campaign, without the need for a Dungeon Master or a large group of players. It’s a campaign-based dungeon crawler where you’ll work together to restore the town of Frosthaven and battle monsters in the frozen wasteland that surrounds it. Each of you plays a particular class with a unique set of cards, which you’ll play in pairs each turn to fight your way through the dungeon.

Frosthaven is a legacy board game, meaning that stickers and sealed envelopes will change the board and rules over time. You can also level up and retire your character, switching them out with an entirely new class. This is a long-term campaign commitment for you and your significant other, who can watch the snowy settlement of Frosthaven build and change over hundreds of sessions.

If you and your partner share a mutual love of board games, and you’re happy to make a serious financial investment, Frosthaven is one of the best board games you can spend your money on. However, like all big commitments in a relationship, you must agree to go on this adventure together.

Read our Frosthaven review.

Romantic trips away and anniversaries are great excuses to game. These events may require you to journey somewhere else, so travel board games are a great investment for couples – and Hive Pocket is a top-tier portable pick.

By laying tiles decorated with different creepy crawlies, players compete to surround their opponent’s queen bee, without breaking up the pattern of tiles already placed down. Each bug tile has its own rules, and every play will leave you and your partner obsessing over possible new tactics – as well as all your previous mistakes.

This is a game you could compare with Chess or Go, and it comes with a lot of the same pros and cons. There’s no real theme or room to use your imagination, just a pure game of wits. If you and your partner get a taste for it, though, Hive will prove as addictive as nectar to a bee.

We’ve chosen to highlight the travel version, Hive Pocket, partly because its simple, compact design and handy little drawstring carry pouch lend themselves to the on-the-go tabletopper, but also because it includes the mosquito and ladybug expansions for even more tactical flavor.

Fog of Love is a game that’s all about relationships. This one-of-a-kind narrative experience asks you to roleplay as a fictional couple, and its mechanics help you play out the story of their romance.

Each partner in the relationship has three secret traits and an occupation that establishes which personality dimensions they start with, as well as which they need to add tokens to throughout the game. Over several chapters, you and your real-life partner will play out sweet, serious, and dramatic scenes for the fictional couple. You’ll keep and reveal secrets, learn more about each other, and tweak those personality traits as time goes on.

All of this will influence the satisfaction scores of your character – and influence whether the relationship survives until the game’s finale. Like in real relationships, you’ll have a better time if you avoid trying to ‘win’ the scenarios, instead focusing on playing out the story in an authentic way.

This is a truly one-of-a-kind game, but that also means repeat games can start to feel a little same-y. It’s also important to note that Fog of Love can be quite an intense experience for real couples. If you’re looking for a lighthearted game night, maybe pick something else.

If you want a game that breaks the ice or gets you chatting, Wavelength is an excellent option. There are points to score and ways to win, but games will often last well beyond the moment of victory. That’s all thanks to the quirky and interesting conversations Wavelength creates.

Wavelength is, at its core, a guessing game. It all starts with a big red dial, which can be spun so that a random slice of it is highlighted in bright colors. Exactly where this section is on the dial is kept secret from one player.

A card is drawn that establishes a binary, with the two ends of the dial representing the different ends of a spectrum. For example, the dial might represent the difference between ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, or ‘funny’ and ‘unfunny’. To help their partner guess the correct section of the dial, the player with the hidden knowledge must say a single word or phrase that’ll give away its location.

Wavelength’s prompts are hyper-specific and often silly, which leads to comical debates and entertaining surprises. At the same time, you might learn something new about your beau based on the judgement calls they make.

Co-op board games are a great way for couples to spend time together without the pressure of competing for a win. That doesn’t mean there’s no tension or challenge – quite the opposite. Sky Team is a perfect example of a co-op experience that’ll still have you on the edge of your seat.

Sky Team turns you into a pair of pilots. You’ll have to work together to land your jet, assigning your separate pools of dice to various tasks that keep the plane in the air and help it descend safely.

There’s a catch, though. You can discuss how you want to spend your dice before you roll them for the round, but after that, you can’t speak to each other at all. Your dice results are hidden from the other player, and you must place them in silence, hoping your fellow pilot makes the right decisions.

Landing a plane is a precarious process. Assigning the wrong value die, forgetting to complete essential tasks, or failing to complete linked tasks at the same time can all end your game immediately. This creates a tense, thematic game, where quick and simple rules don’t make things easy.

Quacks of Quedlinburg is a fabulous family board game, but it’s also perfect for fun-loving couples. This is an explosive push-your-luck game that’s got a low barrier to entry and a high dose of chaos. You may be competing to win the most points, but this is a highly random game that won’t leave anyone too sour when they lose. You can enjoy this wild ride together.

In Quacks of Quedlinburg, players take on the role of potion brewers. You’ll craft your concoctions by pulling ingredients from a bag and placing them on your personal board. The more ingredients you can add to a brew, the more points you can rack up. These can then be used to buy better ingredients at the market, ready to use in future alchemical experiments.

But beware – every potion you mix is at risk of exploding. Pull too many white tokens from your bag of ingredients, and the cauldron blows up in your face, scuppering your chances of scoring well that round. To make things even more nail-bitingly tense, players pull ingredients from their bags simultaneously, putting pressure on their opponents to make risky pulls from the bag.

Read our Quacks of Quedlinburg review.

Fox in the Forest is a simple and beautiful trick-taking card game for two players. Each round, you’ll take turns playing cards from your hand, with the highest value card from certain suits winning the trick. There’s a twist, though – you don’t always want to win a trick.

At the end of a round, you’ll score points based on how many of the 13 tricks you won. Seven to nine wins means that you’re victorious, and you gain a tasty six points. However, zero to three tricks gets you the same number of points. Ten to thirteen wins also means that you’re labelled ‘greedy’, and you get no points at all.

This, combined with cards that shake up play with special abilities, turns Fox in the Forest into a careful, strategic card game, where winning is never simple. It’s easy for players of all experience levels to pick up. You and your significant other may not feel like exploring the game’s fairy tale forests every date night, but it’s a wonderful way to fill many evenings.