I always want to play more solo, but usually I end up doing something else instead, I have a hard time going through the whole setup just to play by myself, but I would probably get heavier games played more that way
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Board Gaming Era |OT| (Mostly) Unplugged Gaming
- Thread starter XShagrath
- Start date
This sounds perfectly miserable.
Yeah, it just sounds like your players wanted more crunch less fluff, which is perfectly valid but they should probably just say so instead of running rough shod over your game.
My group played EotE and Age of Rebellion and had a blast with both. Like you, I had one player who looked for ways to break the system (autofire in my case), but we just talked it out. I pointed out that anything I would use to threaten him would destroy the rest of the group and we worked out a compromise. It's definitely a more cooperative story telling system than a straight "GM rules everything" though. The whole "Yes and" system and advantage/disadvantage thing work towards players getting a bit more story telling agency than other systems, but it should still always be done in furthering the fun of everyone.
Just ordered pie town. Excited to try that one out.
My go to causal game lately is Dice Town. Easy to learn and more luck based so easy to play.
Hoping to snag gloomhaven next week but who knows
I hope I can grab it for retail price I'm not in a hurry
My go to causal game lately is Dice Town. Easy to learn and more luck based so easy to play.
Hoping to snag gloomhaven next week but who knows
I hope I can grab it for retail price I'm not in a hurry
I really need to get my group to start this, but I don't know if we can stop playing Gloomhaven lol
I'm many years into the hobby,although I took a break from buying games the last year(aside from one small expansion). Recently I'm getting that purchasing itch again,currently looking through this kickstarter project
What are some noteworthy games coming in 2018 I should check out? Or in other words your most anticipated?
What are some noteworthy games coming in 2018 I should check out? Or in other words your most anticipated?
http://golddist.com/index.php?m=list&promo=550
So if you haven't secured an early preorder of Gloomhaven in the Spring, you probably won't find a copy. But there will be another 20k print run for maybe May 2018.
So if you haven't secured an early preorder of Gloomhaven in the Spring, you probably won't find a copy. But there will be another 20k print run for maybe May 2018.
I'm hyped for Aeon's End Legacy. The game will be compatible with other AE games too!
Last edited:
Agreed with Aeon's End Legacy. Also, Scarlet Pimpernel (but that's more due to knowing a few people at Eagle Gryphon). A bunch of Essen releases from last year, Altiplano, Nusfjord, etc. Who knows what the latter half of the year has in store though. I'm mainly waiting on games I've kickstarted and should be getting this year.
There's gonna be Aeon's End "Legacy"?
Goddamnit, I have yet to bring my War Eternal to the table and I already want that now...
Goddamnit, I have yet to bring my War Eternal to the table and I already want that now...
Just saw this comment and as a primarily solo player I'm interested to know what games you mostly play? I'm interested in any themes.
Currently playing Arkham Horror LCG and Sylvion. (also played LOTR)
I'm not nicoga, but I play a fair amount of solo games myself. Here's a few I play mainly solo. Kingdom Death: Monster, The 7th Continent, Hostage Negotiator, Nemo's War, Dawn of the Zeds, A Feast for Odin, Fields of Arle, Arkham Horror LCG, pretty much any co-op I'll play once or twice solo at least. Unfortunately, a handful of those were kickstarters and are hard/expensive to get now. If you like Euro games, I highly recommend A Feast for Odin. The variability between a bad score and a good score is so much greater than most games of its ilk so you feel a bigger sense of accomplishment as you get better (Scores can range from negatives to over 100).
I've not played a huge amount of board games so I don't know what my feelings towards Euro types are yet, though I'm familiar with the idea. I'll find a video on Feast for Odin, up for any new themes.
A Feast for Odin is awesome solo. So is Mage Knight. Mage Knight is great solo because you can really take your time deciding how to tackle situations, which is often necessary depending on the scenario and how hard it turns out. I highly suggest looking into it!
I finally got around to playing Legendary Encounters: Alien with a couple of friends the other night. I GREATLY GREATLY prefer it to Marvel. I organised it to be thematically in line with the movies and it went really well. We only just scraped through. It was much more difficult and I found it more satisfying.
I finally got around to playing Legendary Encounters: Alien with a couple of friends the other night. I GREATLY GREATLY prefer it to Marvel. I organised it to be thematically in line with the movies and it went really well. We only just scraped through. It was much more difficult and I found it more satisfying.
I'm most excited for the Robinson Crusoe expansion The Lost City of Z. It's supposed to be a horror type story, so I'll be interested at how the designer can tackle that kind of experience. I've got the newer edition of RC so I have yet to play the Voyage of the Beagle expansion too, but that's not coming out till 2019 once they've regained the publishing rights.
Other than that, I'm intrigued by Level 99's Seventh Cross - a Castlevania SotN-esque game that's hitting Kickstarter not too long from now, but I'm guessing it wouldn't come out till 2019 at the earliest. With the amount of Kingdom Death Monster expansions that I have on the way and how much our group has been playing that, Seventh Cross will be a wait and see type thing.
OP
OP
My 2018 wishlist is pretty small so far. Not a lot announced yet that's really interested me, and most of it is just wanting to hear more information.
Kickstarters coming my way - 7th Continent expansion, The Networks expansion. My friend just got Bios:Genesis and Bios:Megafauna, which we'll be playing soon, as well as backing Thunderstone Quest, Western Legends
Stuff I'm definitely interested in - More Arkham LCG, Teotihaucan, Altiplano
Stuff I'm intrigued by - Black Angel, Brasil, Chronicles of Crime, Dice Settlers, Legendice, Reborn from Flame/Bastion, The Rise of Queensdale, The Stygian Society.
There's a couple others on my "Want to Play" list at BGG, but they'll likely get dropped as more information comes out.
Kickstarters coming my way - 7th Continent expansion, The Networks expansion. My friend just got Bios:Genesis and Bios:Megafauna, which we'll be playing soon, as well as backing Thunderstone Quest, Western Legends
Stuff I'm definitely interested in - More Arkham LCG, Teotihaucan, Altiplano
Stuff I'm intrigued by - Black Angel, Brasil, Chronicles of Crime, Dice Settlers, Legendice, Reborn from Flame/Bastion, The Rise of Queensdale, The Stygian Society.
There's a couple others on my "Want to Play" list at BGG, but they'll likely get dropped as more information comes out.
I'm really looking forward to Heroes of Land Sea and Air. Hunt for the Ring comes out next month which also looks cool.
I'm interested in Voyage of the Beagle as well. a campaign story sounds cool.
Less so for Lost City of Z. Hearing about app utilization just turns me off boardgames that use it, for some reason. I get that they can be useful supplements or make things simpler to use or whatnot, I just can't do it.
If it's the 1.5 edition with the campaign mode I might be interested. Been looking for 1.5 for a while since having things shipped to my home is oddly a pain.
Do you have the 1.0 version? I have an extra 1.5 upgrade kit since I don't know how to read -.-
I'm relatively new to board game semi-obsession thanks to a friend in the last year or so, but I try to buy games that are solo-able so that they're not just occasionally used:
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective / West End Adventures (I have West End Adventures, not sure if the original is currently in reprint again. There's another expansion releasing imminently though. The only reason to play with more than one person is for extra brainpower.)
Arkham LCG
Pandemic is great two+ handed. I got Pandemic Legacy S1 for Christmas but haven't opened it yet because I'm not sure if I should wait to corral someone for the campaign.
Kickstarted 7th Continent (reprint should be out in March) and D-Day Dice (later this year).
I keep thinking about Pandemic Legacy as I hear so much good stuff about it, I've played regular Pandemic with some friends and did love it. I'd prefer games I can truly play solo but I'm open to 2-handing, I may be 2-handing Arkham soon depending on how the rest of my campaign goes.
Played a couple of games of Sylvion with the advanced rules after I got into the swing of it with the basic rules. Won both and I'm sure I must be doing something wrong to do so well, though the first game got tight, second game I never had to flip any edge cards.
Yup!
Here's what the dev has to say about the game too:
I'm pretty certain that the app is an optional extension to the main game and not linked to Z. They were announced at the same time and there was a bit of confusion about it, but I believe it was confirmed elsewhere that Z wouldn't have mandatory app integration.
Sorry for the late reply.
Most of my collection is solo friendly. A few are not, but those are for either parties or times when my wife wants to play with me.
First and foremost, check out BGG solo rankings from 2014 up to 2017. Lots of great info there! For me, I'll list what I've played or own and hopefully provide some help (not a complete list, just a few unique examples to help guide you)!
- Mage Knight - This is pretty much the "go to" solo recommendation, and for a good reason. It's a really solid game. It's difficult to learn, but an incredible experience once you've got it down. While it is a game about building your deck through purchasing cards and conquering keeps and dungeons, I would NOT call it a deck builder. AH, LOTR, Ascension, etc. - those are deck builders. This has deck building elements, and while you DO rely on manipulating your deck, I've never found it to play like a traditional deck builder.
- Shadows of Brimstone - I talk about this one a lot. It's a true dungeon crawling RPG. You create a character and go. Explore the mines, the swamps, the ice covered land of Targa, the hell that is the Caverns of Cynder, the destroyed alien ship...You fight monsters, gain XP, get loot, travel (where crazy shit can happen), visit the town and interact with the locals. It's a spiritual successor to the old Warhammer Quest. The only real issue with it is that there isn't a super good cohessive campaign. There are some fan variants (Hexcrawl comes to mind), but it's the one knock I give this game. There are a TON of expansions for it with an INSANELY huge new world coming soon (Forbidden Fortress, a feudal Japan style world full of Yokai, samurai, etc).
- A Feast for Odin - One of the best worker placement solo games out there. It's daunting. It's overwhelming. But it's great. There's SO much to do that you really get a free-form feel from the gameplay. You don't feel TOO locked into what you "have" to do in order to win. There are some variants of this genre that people are very into, but I haven't played any of them.
- Zombicide/Massive Darkness - There are a lot of options if you want to fall into the CMON Zombicide theme hole. The biggest difference I try to explain to people (aside from the themes and monsters and equipment and...) is that Zombicide games are designed around killing in 1 hit with a fixed amount of damage, whereas Massive Darkness allows you to accumulate damage on the enemies you're facing. So if you find a big monster in Zombicide with 4 health, you HAVE to hit it for 4 damage to kill it (or use a "kill all enemies in the square" item). In Massive Darkness, you could do 2 damage this turn and 2 damage next turn. That to me changes the gameplay substantially. I love Zombicide as a game, but I HATE the way you NEED to search whore the game to get a decent weapon at the start to avoid getting swarmed by literally unkillable monsters.
- Arkham Horror and LotR LCG's - I haven't actually played my copy of AH, but it came the other day and I've been reading the rules. LotR was a lot of fun...For a short bit. I realized how much I hated the whole "build a deck for each specific scenario" versus the AH "build a deck and let it ride". I've heard that Aeon's End is pretty good, but I tend to keep my card games to a minimum.
- Runebound 2e/3e - You won't find 2e anymore unless you go to the aftermarket, but 3e is pretty OK. 2e is my favorite game of all time, and I regret selling all the expansions I had years and years ago. I've been trying to find it again, but I only have 2e base. I own all of the new 3e stuff, and while it's not a bad game, it's not great. The solo expansion is borderline required, but you CAN play the core game solo by making the decisions for the enemies yourself (instead of having the other player make them). If you can find 2e, it's an awesome solo game. It actually plays worse the more people you add since it increases the game time substantially.
- Ghost Stories - One of the first games I ever purchased. Really fun, but SUPER hard. It's very much a puzzle game. I think there's an iOS version that's worth checking out if you're interested in the game. You control various Taoist monks trying to banish ghosts. It's like, super hard. A lot of fun, though.
- Descent 2e (with the app) - I own all of this game and SUPER love it. ANOTHER dungeon crawler, but you need the app to play it solo (unless you print off some fan made cards). It's a great campaign based game with a TON of expansions. It's very different from the other dungeon crawlers mentioned in that you don't level up, you simply gain equipment and become more powerful by design. The app adds some awesome new features to the game that reminds me of mapping from Path of Exile or Rifts from Diablo 3 (if you know those games). Really cool stuff. Imperial Assault is also an option if you prefer Star Wars to generic fantasy...I do, but the IA app wasn't out when I was building my Descent collection, so I've got ZERO incentive to dump all that and build a brand new collection.
- Kingdom Death: Monster - Look, I think this game is amazing. I would argue that it's in my top spot (that dances with Brimstone), but it is NOT for everyone. It's expensive (I'm in for $2000 at this point), hard to get, has very suggestive imagery that may make you uncomfortable (lots of death, dicks, boobs, etc). BUT! If you know the Monster Hunter video games, it's basically the boardgame version of that. Incredible game that you should at least try if you can find a copy. The biggest issue I have with it that the expansions are VERY hard to get. They come up on the webstore randomly, and disappear just as fast. I have a God Frogdog pledge from the previous Kickstarter, so I have EVERYTHING coming. But not everyone was that fortunate.
- One Deck Dungeon - A light game that you can knock out in 20-30 minutes. Maybe quicker. It's a fun game that was, at one point, the hottest thing ever. A dice game that is probably like, I don't know, 70% RNG, 15% skill, 15% luck? A cool game to have in your collection if you're looking for something to play over lunch or something.
- Dungeon Roll - A nice press your luck dice game that can be played in 15 minutes. It's actually a lot of fun with more than one person since you don't interact - you just see who can score the highest. And fortunately, it plays super fast so there's very little downtime and a LOT of excitement.
Someone has almost for sure played games on that list that you'll be curious about. There are a number of great solo games that play amazingly well on an iPad or something if you've got one of those. Smallworld, Carc, Suburbia (fucking love this game, but not solo without the app), Onirim (would never touch the physical version, but the app is a blast), etc. That's a different thing entirely, but there's SO much worth looking at there that you can 100% solo thanks to AI bots!
*whew* Hope that helps a little. Boardgame Geek 1-player guild is worth getting involved with. There's a few games that I haven't listed for one reason or another (Gloomhaven, Pandemic, Space Empires 4X, Mr. President, Magic Realm, Dark Souls), but anything you see that you're curious about...Just ask. There's thousands of games out there, and often times, we find ourselves getting suggestions for games we didn't even know existed thanks to how unique gaming tastes can be!
I'll defend Onirim with the note that physically you need to do a shitload of shuffling. I find that somewhat relaxing, which is where I think it shines.
If you have a smart phone I think Onirim is the perfect digital game. Saves the headache of having to shuffle the deck every 30 secondsz
I mean I think the shuffling is relaxing. The app hence misses the best bit :)
OP
OP
I played Bios Genesis for the first time yesterday. Talk about a brain burner! Mechanically, it wasn't difficulty. Decision-making wasn't that bad either. But what made it such an insane experience was trying to figure out how to actually play!
The game is essentially about creating life, starting from single celled organisms floating through space to landing on a planet and evolving to become terrestrial. It's got all the scientific terminology on the cards, and in the rules. Instead of saying something like "You can use one of the cubes from your supply to create an organ for your creature," it would say some balls-out crazy scientific jargon in the rules that would take us several minutes to get, frequently checking BGG to see if we got it right. I'm not science-minded at all. When my wife tries to explain this stuff to me from her biology courses, I just say "magic."
In the end, it was a good time though. It took a long time, which kinda makes sense. Each turn represents 2,000,000 years. I hope we can get it to the table again soonish, as if we don't play it again for a year, I'll forget everything. Also, we've got Bios Megafauna sitting there taunting us too, which is a bigger box (a little daunting), although I think it'll be a bit easier to grasp, since I imagine the science in that is a little bit more high-level.
The game is essentially about creating life, starting from single celled organisms floating through space to landing on a planet and evolving to become terrestrial. It's got all the scientific terminology on the cards, and in the rules. Instead of saying something like "You can use one of the cubes from your supply to create an organ for your creature," it would say some balls-out crazy scientific jargon in the rules that would take us several minutes to get, frequently checking BGG to see if we got it right. I'm not science-minded at all. When my wife tries to explain this stuff to me from her biology courses, I just say "magic."
In the end, it was a good time though. It took a long time, which kinda makes sense. Each turn represents 2,000,000 years. I hope we can get it to the table again soonish, as if we don't play it again for a year, I'll forget everything. Also, we've got Bios Megafauna sitting there taunting us too, which is a bigger box (a little daunting), although I think it'll be a bit easier to grasp, since I imagine the science in that is a little bit more high-level.
Tried playing Through the Ages on the weekend and just couldn't get into it. Even using the instruction book that guides you through didn't make it easy.
On the plus side, I also got Smallworld for Christmas too and after playing it 4 times, we love it. What a chamring game.
On the plus side, I also got Smallworld for Christmas too and after playing it 4 times, we love it. What a chamring game.
Having played it in four separate campaigns now, I would say "it's pretty good, but needs time to be great". It's great in that like Road to Legend for Descent, you can play the game fully co-op. There is currently only one campaign (though two entry points to the campaign as the tutorial uses a different starting mission), and many of the expansions are not implemented in the app yet beyond adding the player characters and items. It's fun, but they're going to need to add content fast for any groups that play frequently.
That said, my fourth play group found a new side mission last night I had not seen in any of my three previous runs, so that's pretty cool.
Has anyone given Time Barons a go? It just came out in Europe and is co-designed by Derek Yu (Spelunky) so I figured it'd be worth a try.
Only played one game so far but quite enjoyed it. Close game too - I lost but came within one action of a win :) The follower/damage mechanic is pretty interesting, but my main concern (after one game, so this may be a non-issue) is that the card costs don't always seem quite right. Curious to see how it holds up.
Only played one game so far but quite enjoyed it. Close game too - I lost but came within one action of a win :) The follower/damage mechanic is pretty interesting, but my main concern (after one game, so this may be a non-issue) is that the card costs don't always seem quite right. Curious to see how it holds up.
This weekend, I played Scythe with 4 people who never played it before, so I thought it would be interesting to handicap myself by not building any mechs. That resulted in me losing hard, but it was still fun :D I lost combat with my character quite early in the game and I had a hard time recovering from that. Going the no-mech route might be possible, but with 5 players, the board is pretty crowded, which makes it even harder to get your workers out of your starting area.
Also played 7 wonders, Codenames pictures and Bohnanza, good times were had.
Also played 7 wonders, Codenames pictures and Bohnanza, good times were had.
Have you noticed a difference in starting gear/rewards if you choose the tutorial or not? We played through the tutorial the other week, learning again as we went since it had been forever since we played. When it was over I noticed we had the app set to believe additional expansions were owned when in fact we were just playing with a core set. So there's an item reward that doesn't exist, and a shop full of items we can't buy for the same reasons. I'd rather not play through the tutorial again, but does starting a new, tutorial-less campaign result in no additional XP or rewards we would have had otherwise?
Wow, that's quite the write up, thanks for taking the time! I feel like a lot of these suggestions look quite up my street as I think I get a better idea of what I like/want.
Addressing what I've already played:
I've probably got hours of Onirim logged on my phone, absolutely love it, bought all 3 expansions. It's what convinced me Sylvion would be a good buy as I'd heard good things and put my faith in Shadi Torbey after Onirim. I'm liking Sylvion so far as something that's a bit easier to get into if you just want to play something for half an hour and forget about it.
I've started playing Arkham recently and I've been really enjoying it, though I haven't got particularly far I know it's meant to be hard so I don't feel too bad about it, plus the multiple paths meaning "failure" isn't necessarily failure, just another path to the end. I got into Arkham through playing LOTR which, as much as I tried to really enjoy it, I ultimately have fallen off a little bit. I think part of my problem is the same as yours; I got a couple of additional scenarios and if I wanted to try a different one well then it's time to build a new 50-card deck and building decks prior to the game is just something that doesn't really interest me that much - something AH addresses in its smaller deck sizes and the fact you build it then just get to upgrade a couple of cards as you go. I also love the setting of LOTR so that was a big initial draw so it's been sad I've ultimately given up on the game a bit. That being said I am also a big fan of Lovecraft so the setting for AH is pretty ideal for me too.
As for what Ive not played and what I think I want:
What I think I've figured out is I like the idea of RPG type games, so questing, progressing through a story (even if the story isn't that great, just some vague narrative to keep you moving throughout the scenario). Based on this one of the games that stood out from the description here was Shadows of Brimstone, that definitely sounds like the type of thing I'm looking for. Descent (or Imperial Assault) also sounds pretty intriguing. I might consider something like One Deck Dungeon as adding some quick games into the collection would be nice - the RNG sounds a bit unappealing.
All in all I think your preference sounds like what I'm interested in, RPGs/dungeon crawlers. I'll absolutely take a look through BGG's lists and probably come back here/head to youtube for impressions/suggestions.
One thing that's been great getting into all this stuff is just how helpful and friendly everyone is when you're trying to get into it. Posts like yours and other people that have jumped in to offer suggestions, it's a very welcoming community.
As far as I can tell, no. You get random rewards and random armory regardless of whether you go through the tutorial or the "real" first mission. Going straight to the campaign instead of through the tutorial gives you the option to set the difficulty to hard (which I have not tried) and is a bit tougher of a mission, but as far as I can tell leads to exactly the same point as going through the tutorial.
I've played the regular campaign twice, got through 2 missions playing as the imperial player and while I may have bungled threat levels(first mission I didn't use it at all, second I added too much) I had no issues otherwise... I just need to find some people to play with
Placed a preorder on Gloomhaven at an online shop (Canada) that didn't take preorders previously. Hopefully that means they'll get stock this month.
Also, out of my 24 odd game collection, only 4 are unplayed(Star Wars monopoly Togo edition and marvel codenames, both Christmas presents; street fighter the deck builder, and exceed, the latter being an impulse buy) and one is getting played this weekend. That and i've Decided to get rid of my hero clip collection, just have to figure out how(might deal with the headache of 2 eBay lots, one for rare one for everything else)
I miss playing hero clix but the game got so ridiculous once they added resources...and it's such a toss up going to tournaments whether or not you're going to play against assholes or not.
I had a super nice little community last place I lived, regulars were me, the shop owner and a handful of local kids and we had great matches, and I could make nearly any sealed match work(my fav format). Then occasionally the shop owners family including his brother who ranked in the top 100 clix players would show up for a real challenge. Problem is my nearest shop is 15 mins away by highway so I'm just not motivated to travel for such a money commitment to play. I'd like to do some light xwing play and have a basic lineup for some fun experimenting but there's no community at the shop.
At this point the minis are just sitting around, and I may as well take the time to sell the rares, other than a handful of my faves(kingdom come flash and sketch devil dinosaur come to mind)
Also bit on Imperial Assualt and the boba fett expansion.thats it for now, but I do plan to grab some of the campaign boxes eventually(especially the one that makes boba useful) otherwise keeping my game buying at a minimum this year
I will not miss my dice luck though, seriously 6 critical misses in a row, 2 dozen in a tourney, and one game where I had a unbeatable team but missed every roll despite only needing a 5 or higher
I think it would be better that you handicap yourself by giving other players easier to play factions instead of not building any mech. Without mech there is no way you could even be competitive because you can't easily cross water, you can't transport workers and most of all you provide no threat to your neighbor which in Scythe I found is probably more important than anything. I taught two games of Scythe at OrcaCon this weekend and I just let new players have the easier factions.
I wanted to play with the Wind Gambit because it was part of the lending library but there were just too many new players at the table.
Last edited:
The campaign via the app is completely separate from the campaign in the Core Set or any expansion. It follows some different rules, like healing not rolling over between strain and health or item costs being vastly different. It is basically a single story told over 5 missions.
My girfriend got me Boss Monster for Christmas and we tried to play it for a few times. But there are a few issues.
One is, that my GF is not that into reading cards and per-card rules, so "building", and I think the game is heavily luck based and the spell cards are very much underutilized. It's charming, but every time it ends, it's.. eh.. okay. I did not play well or bad.. it just ended. Maybe the expansions or the successor improve it?
We got two player Bohnanza (not sure for non-German territories?) and very much addicted to this. Also we like to play Loot Letter (Munchkin variant of Love Letter) a lot.
I am now looking for a game a bit more complex than Love Letter, but not too complex with lot's of per-card rules and texts, for two players :) Dominion sounds neat! Also Pandemic and other cooperative board games could work well I guess. Those fable and Fast Forward games with Legacy-like flow sound neat-
One is, that my GF is not that into reading cards and per-card rules, so "building", and I think the game is heavily luck based and the spell cards are very much underutilized. It's charming, but every time it ends, it's.. eh.. okay. I did not play well or bad.. it just ended. Maybe the expansions or the successor improve it?
We got two player Bohnanza (not sure for non-German territories?) and very much addicted to this. Also we like to play Loot Letter (Munchkin variant of Love Letter) a lot.
I am now looking for a game a bit more complex than Love Letter, but not too complex with lot's of per-card rules and texts, for two players :) Dominion sounds neat! Also Pandemic and other cooperative board games could work well I guess. Those fable and Fast Forward games with Legacy-like flow sound neat-