Discord Games You Can Play With Just Two People
Most game lists assume you have six friends free at once
Staff Writer · · 2 min read
Most "games to play on Discord" lists assume you have a group: six people, a voice call, everyone free at the same time. That isn't the common case. The common case is two people who want something to do together.
Two-player games have a real advantage, which is that there's no scheduling problem. Here's what works.
Games that are better with two
Chess. The obvious one, and it holds up because the skill ceiling is unreachable. It also works asynchronously, which matters more than it sounds like it does.
Connect 4. Faster than chess and more tactical than it looks. It's worth reading up on, since the first player has a forced win with perfect play, and there's a separate article on that.
Checkers. Underrated, and much quicker to learn than chess if one of you isn't a chess person.
Head-to-head word games. Anagrams and similar formats work well at two players because there's no waiting for a turn order. You're both racing the same clock.
The asynchronous advantage
The best thing about a two-player game in a Discord text channel is that neither of you has to be there at the same time.
A chess game played a move at a time over three days is a genuinely good way to stay in contact with someone in another timezone. It's low pressure, it doesn't require scheduling a call, and there's a small pleasant moment every time you open Discord and find that it's your turn.
That's the main reason bot-run games beat Discord Activities for two people. Activities need you both in a voice call simultaneously, whereas a bot game sits in a channel and waits for you.
Gamebot runs Chess, Connect 4, Anagrams and Poker in a text channel, so a two-player game can take three minutes or three days.
Card games with two
Most card games are designed for three or more and get thin at two, but there are exceptions worth knowing about. Heads-up poker is a completely different game from table poker and is arguably more interesting, since you're playing the person rather than the odds.
Things that need no software at all
Two people on a voice call can play 20 Questions, word association, or a co-op puzzle game with one person screen sharing. If you're mostly looking for an excuse to talk to someone regularly, the game barely matters, because what you're really after is the structure.