Best Board Games for Date Night
Board game date nights are a staple around here. They’re a way that we can prioritize and make time for each other even when we can’t go out for the night. Over the years we’ve played a lot of games (over 300 unique games last year alone!) and I have a few tips for choosing the best one when it comes to date night!
1. Avoid Conflict-Heavy Games
The goal of a date is to enjoy your time together and the game you choose should help create the environment for that. Choose games that are low in conflict — this isn’t the time for a difficult strategy battle against each other, go for a friendlier option so there’s no risk of squabbling over rules. Bonus points if you’re able to chat about life a bit while playing. If you are looking for a more strategic option, go for one that’s cooperative! (Like number 4 on this list!)
2. Keep the Game Shorter
Try to choose games with shorter playtimes unless it’s one you know really well. I think the 30-60 minute range is great for date night. If it’s on the shorter end, you can play two games back to back. If it’s a little longer, it still won’t take up your whole evening. Maybe it’s a game and a movie night!
3. Make it Special!
Head out to your local game store and pick out your date night game together for the evening. Create a delicious charcuterie spread with all the fixings to enjoy during the evening. Whatever you do, make it special! Date Nights should always involve some sort of extra effort that sets them apart.
This is our SIXTH installment in our Game Night series! This year all the games featured are two player specific games — but that doesn’t mean a game for more players isn’t a great date night game. Most games play excellently at two players and we’ve featured many of them on previous installments of this series which you can view here: 2019 – 2020 – 2021 – 2022 – 2023
Board Games for Date Night
Sky Team
Sky Team is as much a simulation as it is a game. You’ll work together to land a plane safely. Radio ahead to the airport to have them clear the landing strip, keep your plane balanced, lower the landing gear, and control your velocity. It’s such a slick game that plays surprisingly quickly and truly thrusts you into the theme.
Stellar
This is a beautiful game all about finding celestial objects in your telescope. You’ll draft cards to place onto your telescope and into your notebook that, hopefully, in the end will net you the highest victory points to win.
Patterns: A Mandala Game
Simple area control where you’ll take turns swapping tiles on the tea towel board. Colors score differently for each player depending on when they choose to stake their claim of that color on the board. Quick, strategic, and addicting!
Kinfire Delve: Vainglory’s Grotto
A cooperative game where you’ll battle through a deck of cards to defeat Vainglory. This is an excellent dungeon diving card game – capturing all the fun of those bigger multi-hour games into a card game experience. There are lots of clever ways to play each card and complete each challenge; requiring players to collaborate together to use their cards as efficiently as possible to survive.
Lacuna
A lightning fast game where you’ll place pawns on imaginary lines connecting flowers of the same color. If you’re able to collect the majority of the flowers in a majority of colors, you win. Great for date night and with kids! See it played here.
Quarto
We love this abstract game. You’re working to align four pieces that all share one attribute (all tall pieces, all square, etc) but the catch is…you are choosing the pieces your opponent will place on their turn, so if they win, you handed it to them.
Tokaido Duo
Relaxing, replayable, and dare I say romantic! Tokaido Duo has a beautiful exterior hiding a comforting depth of strategy. We found the game surprisingly tactical, though never straying from “friendly” game play.
Star Wars: The Deck Building Game
An excellent choice for date night! Go head to head in this deck building battle. We love that the theme is really well developed in the game play but doesn’t alienate those that might not be huge Star Wars fans. See it played here.
Knucklebones
This is a fun dice game introduced to us by a member of our community on Instagram! We loved it so much we added it to our dice game series! You can play with this beautiful custom made set, or you can use our free print off to play at home with a single die!
Boop!
You can never go wrong with an abstract game and Boop is one of the best! Try to align three cats in a row, but every time you place a cat on the bed it “boops” all those around it away. Use that to your advantage to set yourself up for a win! See it played here.
Royal Visit
If you love clever card play, Royal Visit is for you! Use your cards to move characters up and down the board to get them into your kingdom to win. With a smart move, you can swing the game back and forth quickly so you always need to be on the look out!
That Time You Killed Me
Travel through time in this abstract game! It is at once simple and incredibly difficult. You must work to see multiple moves into the future and be ready to change course in an instant if your opponents travels in time to dash your plans.
Wingspan Asia
We’ve long thought of Wingspan as a lovely date night game. Wingspan Asia provides a special duel board that requires players to interact with and pay attention to what the other is doing in a way designed specifically for the two player experience. While it integrates with the original Wingspan, this is a stand alone game so if you don’t have Wingspan already, this gives you everything you need to play.
Tuned
An interesting take on tik-tac-toe, Tuned allows players access to all of the pawns on the board. If you can devise a way to stack them all so they’re in a row and uncovered by any other piece, you win! Quick to play which is great because you’ll want to play multiple games back to back. See it played here.
Dorfromantik
My standout game of the year. While Dorfromantik can be played with more than two players, we think it shines best as a solo or two player cooperative game. Work together to place tiles to build out your village and score points. The campaign mode helps ease you into all of the various ways of scoring while providing fun elements to unlock as your skills improve with each game! See it played here.
Board games for date night. Date night board games. Board games for date night.
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