Lists

10 Great Board Games for Date Night vol. 3!

One of our favorite ways to spend time together is by playing a great board game for date night! With 6 kids, you can imagine that finding a sitter and getting out of the house isn’t always an easy task. But that doesn’t mean that date nights have to take a back seat.

We strongly believe in making time to spend together as a couple. Sometimes that looks like going out to dinner and a movie, sometimes it’s a Netflix binge of a new favorite show, and other times it looks like picking up a new game to play together.

What We Look for in a Date Night Game

While any game you love can make a great date night game, our criteria for date night shifts ever so slightly.

I like to prioritize the date over the game. The goal of a date is to connect and enjoy your time together. That means the game should help create an environment to do that.

The games we like to choose for date nights won’t take up your whole evening. No need to plan hours around a huge game. Likewise, the game below are not overly complex and are relatively free of frustrating elements. Not only do we want you to be able to chat together while playing, but we also don’t want to ruin a perfectly good date with an argument over rules.

Most importantly, these are all games we feel are very fun to play as a couple. Some will be two-player only, others allow for more.

Either way, they’re Tabletop Family Date Night Approved!

This is the third installment in our Date Night Series.
Find the first post Here
Find the second post Here

2 Player Games

The following games are designed to only be played with two players.

Mandala

This beautiful game pairs perfectly with a charcuterie board and your favorite tasty beverage.

We love Mandala for date night because of the enjoyable back and forth strategy players will employ against each other as you strategically play cards hoping to earn the most points.

Mandala is interesting because the scoring of cards is determined by when a player chooses to add that color type into their scoring board. All cards begin with equal value, but that changes over the game and what might be invaluable to you, can prove highly valuable to your opponent.

This is a clever and original 2 player game that plays quickly — so even if you are a tired, exhausted parent (oh hi! It me!) this is a game that can get to the table easily.

Claim

A Trick-Taking card game for two! Claim is a fast card game where the suits have powers and the game plays out in two phases. In phase one, you use your hand to win cards for use in phase two. In phase two, those won cards become your new hand that you’ll need to use in order to win the game.

We love the strategy involved in learning how to best utilize the powers of the suits in each phase of the game. While the second phase might seem like the most important, you have to really play well in the first to set yourself up for success in the second.

Claim is addicting fun and a great option to toss in a bag and bring to the park or your favorite date night spot.

Shobu

If you’re in search for a game with a unique look and feel, look no further than the natural design of Shobu! Here you’ll engage in a friendly back and forth as you try to eliminate your opponent’s pieces and be the last player standing.

This is a game that is not only fun to play, but it is fun to play with — naturally inviting you with its natural materials. We love it for the simple rules that hide a deeper strategy that makes it addicting.

For more of our thoughts on Shobu, check out our full review.

Codenames Duet

Many know Codenames as a party game, but if you haven’t tried the Duet version yet you need to put it on your radar! The spirit of the game is very much the same, just modified to allow for two players, working as a team, to try and win together!

Codenames Duet may be even more challenging than the original party game. (We can count on one hand the number of times we’ve won!)

If you are looking for a great virtual game to play together, Codenames Duet has just added an online version to allow you to connect for a virtual date night! CLICK HERE to play online.

Games that Play Great at 2

The following games play excellently for two players while also allowing for higher player counts.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

We loved The Crew when we played it with our friends, but we fell in love with it once we tried the two player variant.

The Crew is like a two for one deal when it comes to date night. Not only is the card game fun, but because there are 50 missions, it also packs a slight legacy/campaign game feel to it. This is a game you’ll enjoy playing over multiple date nights together as you work your way through the entire booklet and over come the many challenging missions.

Find our full review of The Crew here.

Exit Games

The fun of an escape room all packed up into a small box!

We have been addicted to Exit Games and they are still, after many years, one of our favorite ways to spend date night together. Each Exit game has a theme and you’ll work through the story, searching for clues to solve the puzzles and crack the codes.

Each box has a difficulty rating, so make sure you look for that when deciding which one you want to get.

Also important to note: these are one and done games. During play you’ll cut, rip, fold, and in other ways alter the game so it will not be playable again. Their low price point and challenging puzzles make this a fun date night treat to pick up!

Some of our very favorite Exit Games have been:

Theft on the Mississippi
Secret Lab
Pharaoh’s Tomb

Chronicles of Crime

Love testing your investigation skills? Chronicles of Crime is an excellent date night game for couples who are fans of the detective genre.

Chronicles of Crime combines a board game with an app interface and virtual reality to make for an immersive gaming experience. We absolutely love getting the chance to scan the crime scene, zoom in on details we think are important, visit various locations, and interview witnesses and suspects.

With your smart phone in hand, your goal is to catch the killer and solve the case in the shortest time possible! Good luck, love birds!

Project L

If L stands for Love then Project L makes a great choice for date night.

Simple and relaxing, Project L is a fun Tetris like experience where you’ll work to complete different puzzles to earn points. It features fast turns and games go quickly, meaning it’s easy to play multiple times back to back for a friendly “best out of 3” competition.

While the puzzles get your brain working and strategizing, we love that we’re still able to hold a conversation while playing together.

Quirky Circuits

One thing we always love to do is find ways to test our communication skills and how well we know each other and Quirky Circuits is a fun way to do that!

This is a coding game where you’ll work together to build a code for the robots to follow to help complete the mission goals. However, you’ll only know what you’ve inputted into the code, you won’t know what your partner has put in until you reveal it all.

It’s fun, silly, and a light hearted challenge to enjoy together!

Read our full review here.

Wingspan

Few things I love more than planning a date night around this game.

Wingspan is still, after 2+ years, my favorite game to play after the putting the kids to bed. You’ll love the elegant design of the game and artwork as you draft birds into your preserve to build a powerful engine. You don’t have to be an ornithologist to enjoy this game, but it might turn you into one!

For our full review of Wingspan here.
European Expansion Review
Oceania Expansion Review