In my continuing quest to help couples just have fun and CHILL together, I want to tell you about our newest favourite 2-player board game.
With thanks to Gen 42 Games for sponsoring this post!
A few years ago I wrote a post on 20 awesome two-player games you can play as a couple, and that post has consistently been one of my top traffic generators. But what’s cool is that I can track my Amazon links from that post and see what people are buying (okay, that sounds mildly creepy. But I don’t see any INDIVIDUAL information, so don’t worry!). Anyway, one day I took a gander and saw that a ton of people were buying something called Hive. (They followed my links to buy another game, but then bought this, too). I’d never heard of it. But every Christmas I buy new games for the family, so I bought this one for Keith and me, since we were recent empty nesters and I was looking for more two-player games. And it had won so many awards, and was so highly rated, I was intrigued. We really enjoy it! It’s kind of like chess, except it’s WAY easier to learn, and each game takes maybe 10 minutes. So we often play “best 2 out of 3” or “best 3 out of 5”, and that way it’s likely that each of us will win at least ONE game. It’s also highly portable, so we sometimes take it down to our local pub for a game night date. We play a game while we’re waiting for the food, and then two games after, which is exactly what we did last week. And I’ll show you pics to explain all about it!
In the basic Hive game, you have 5 types of pieces:
- Queen Bee, who can move one space;
- A Bettle, who can move one space, but who can ALSO climb on top of other pieces
- A Spider, who can move exactly three;
- A grasshopper, who can jump over any number of pieces in a straight line;
- And an ant, who can travel around the outside of the hive and go anywhere.
The Rules to Hive are quite simple.
- To win, your opponent’s queen must be fully surrounded (by you or by a combination of your pieces and the opponent’s pieces)
- The Hive must stay together. You can’t pull out a piece that would separate the Hive into two distinct hives.
- Each turn, you can either lay a piece or move a piece.
- You can only lay down a piece so that it’s touching your own colour, not any of your opponent’s pieces
Getting ready to play the game
Keith puts his Beetle on my queen to stop me from moving the queen
I thought I was all set to move my spider around his queen, but he placed his ant there to block me.
A few moves later, I made a fatal mistake. I joined up the hive, allowing him to move his queen out (he had done this 2 moves before this picture I believe). And now his ants were perfectly positioned to move in for the win!
Round 1 went to Keith! But Round 2 went to me:
And then Keith won game 3, so he took best 2 out of 3!
We really do enjoy playing games together, especially short ones that don’t require a ton of set up or clean up. We’ve been talking about intimacy all month, and I’m a big believer in turning off of screens and having some fun together. Sometimes you need to get away from Netflix!
Every Christmas I buy a new game for us as a family, and now a new couple game as well.
This year I’ll be buying some of the expansions for Hive (you can buy a mosquito, ladybug, and pillbug too!). If you’re looking to start a game collection, I thoroughly recommend Hive (You can get it here!). And we’ll be giving away a copy of Hive! Just enter the raffle below. We’ll draw a random winner December 6 at midnight (so that we can announce the winner in next Friday’s email). To get extra points to enter, just follow Gen 42 Games on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. (Buy Hive on Amazon right here!)<a class="rcptr" href="http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/9ebfd6a51/" rel="nofollow" data-raflid="9ebfd6a51" data-theme="classic" data-template="" id="rcwidget_pt2mlzh6">a Rafflecopter giveaway</a><!-- [et_pb_line_break_holder] --><script src="https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js"></script>
Let me know–what are your favourite games as a couple? Have you ever tried Hive? Let’s talk in the comments!
Besides the old standards, we love Monopoly Deal and Quelf! Both have short enough games to go a few rounds, quiet enough for after the kids are in bed, and are a lot of fun fun for two very competitive people to play together!
My husband absolutely refuses to play Quelf but daughter and I enjoy it 🙂
Thanks for sharing about this board game, Sheila! My husband and I love playing board games after the little one is in bed, and he loves learning new ones, so we’re always looking for good two player games! We have many of the ones you’ve suggested on your original post. And more are on our wish list ;-). Dominion is a favorite, I’m buying yet another expansion for Christmas this year!
Board games are perfect for parents of Littles. For less than the cost of one date night, you buy a game that can be played over and over, at your convenience, after the kids are in bed. So much cheaper than paying for dinner, movie tickets and a babysitter!
Hive looks like lots of fun! I’m tempted to buy it right now, it’s on sale on Amazon, but I entered your draw so I suppose I should wait a week on the off chance that I win a draw for once :-p. Supposing I do end up buying the game, should I make a point to go through your link so you get a referral bonus?
As a side note, have you ever been to a board games cafe? We have a few in town and used to go more often before the baby. It’s a great way to discover and test drive new games! Also great if you’ve been recommended a game but don’t want to commit to the cash without having played it before.
I love that point about how cost effective games are–I hadn’t ever thought of it that way!
And love the board games cafe idea, too! 🙂 Thanks for sharing!!
I haven’t heard of board game cafés, but many local breweries have board games or a few decks of cards for people to use. One thing my husband and I love to do is go to a brewery, share a flight or two (since they’re usually really cheap directly at the brewery), and play Canasta. Boards games in that type of setting would be really fun too!
There is a brew house near us that has family night but regardless there is a table just stacked with games that people have brought and left and you just go in and pick one and play it at anytime. This year the game we have chosen so far is called SAY ANYTHING. Totally up my alley. LOL.
We love board games! Though our use of them has been more sporadic since the kids came along. Our 3 year old is at the point where we can sometimes play a preschool board game with him, though. Training him young for family game night. 😀
When we do get to play ourselves, we like games like Fluxx, Farkel (a surprisingly fun dice game), Exploding Kittens, and Ticket to Ride. Other 2 player friendly games we need a refresher on but enjoyed are Small World, Cartagena (to get pirates to escape prison), Arctic Scavengers, and A Few Acres of Snow (I learned some history from that one!) I haven’t heard of Hive, I’ll have to check it out!
Love, love, LOVE Hive! Tons of portable fun! I recommend the travel version it comes with the ladybug and the pillbox already, the pieces are beautiful, only slightly smaller than the original and it’s easy to take on the go. We bought a second set so all three of us can play, Hive still plays fairly well as a three player game. I’m planning to put the pillbox in my son’s and husband’s stockings this Christmas 🙂 Hive is always in my purse or if we’re biking in my pannier 😀
For 2 players I also recommend Maze Racer, Equilibrio & Blokus 😉
Love the recommendation, Sheila! I bought Jaipur for my husband last Christmas on your advice, so you’ve got a good track record. Besides Jaipur, our current favorites are Dominion, which I know you’ve mentioned, and Castles of Burgundy, which is a little more complicated but super fun. Thanks for the new good idea!
Our current obsessions for 2 players is Lords of Waterdeep and Terraforming Mars with Venus expansion. NOT portable games at all… for smaller quicker game we really like Minto Works and Mint Delivery. They were both Kickstarters. They fit in an Altoid tin so super portable, actually have strategy involved and are fun. I also enjoy Viticulture as a more elaborate game but hubby does not so I play it with a friend.
We played games a lot during our dating and early married years. Now we are close to empty nesters. Need to get back into it more regularly when it’s just the two of us. We love Skip Bo, Rummicube, and London Bridge (like Phase 10 but played with regular cards)
Hi! Totally wanted to enter the drawing but I don’t have social media(too much of a time sucker). Enough interested by your helpful pictures and directions I may just go buy a copy anyway.
My hubby loves to play games, so we have a bunch. Aside from some that have already been mentioned, we enjoy Patchwork (it has a quilting theme!), Stone Age & Happy Pigs. I’m not a big game lover, but these ones are not that hard to learn & I actually don’t mind playing them.
My husband and I play Quad-ominos. It is an oldie. When I looked for it on Amazon it was pricey…https://www.amazon.ca/Quad-ominos-Ultimate-Domino-Game-Pressman/dp/B00DXYEWP4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543949126&sr=8-1&keywords=quadominos
Are there any board games where it is not about one partner winning? Where there is some kind of collaboration…and/or sharing stories?
We love Pandemic for that! That’s a great cooperative game. We’ve also been playing some new Bible-based ones–there’s one called Commissioned that is really fun and is cooperative, too!