The 2 player game-player's guide to 2 player games...

Hey guys, some of you may or may not know that I write for a small independently run games website, www.gaminglives.com

We mainly review video games and run video game related opinion pieces and the like. However more recently I've been writing reviews for board games and such under the header of Acoustic Gaming, because as I've come to discover, they are pretty awesome.

I'm trying to put a piece together about my favourite 2 player games, either 2 player only games or larger games that also work great with just 2 players. I then thought it might be a good idea to see what the rest of my club thought on the subject and perhaps you would even like to contribute to my article?

If you're interested then what I'd like from you guys is no more than a couple of paragraphs (Say around 100-150 words) about your favourite 2player game and why it's so great.

If you'd like to get involved then send me a PM with your paragraph or so. I will try to use everyone's but depending on the number I get and whether or not you're all picking the same games, I may have to be selective. I also may have to edit your words slightly either for grammar or flow but I'll confirm any major changes with yourself before I submit to my editor.

Finally, if anyone thinks that they have something to say themselves, be it about board games or video games and would like a platform from which people can read it we are always looking to find new blood. I've been with these guys for years now and they are a great bunch of people, the site is pretty popular too, with hundreds of thousands of unique hits each month.

Get in touch if you have any questions

Just to give people a flavour of what I'm looking for, this is what I've wrote:

"To kick things off I’ll start with my own personal favourite; Lords of Waterdeep. While not strictly a 2 player game, it can play up to 5 (6 if you’ve got the expansion) LoW plays marvellously well with just 2 players and allows for some very high scoring games. A relatively simple worker placement type game, LoW has you assigning workers to spaces on the board in order to gather resources which in turn will allow you to complete quests and earn victory points. The brilliant thing about this game is that you’ll never quite play the same game twice due to all the different buildings and quest types available and you don’t always know who is going to win until all the bonus points are counted up at the end. Lords of Waterdeep retails for around £40 but you can get it for a lot cheaper than that. For a more in depth look at Lords of Waterdeep, check out our review here <link to our review>"

Of course I'm not expecting you to link to reviews and what not. I just happen to have covered it on the site in the past. Don't worry too much about following this format exactly. I don't want everyone's section to be a clone of each other. Just write whatever you want and we'll take it from there.

Howja pronounce the name of the website?

I used to write videogame reviews for a website in another life and I've been meaning to have a go at board game reviews. I can probably write a bit about Netrunner. When do you need it by?

Ha, there is an element of double meaning but it's lives as in multiples of life and not lives as in live in a house.

My last published game (check out Retro Racing on an iPad) had quite a significant 2 player component (head to head racing on the same device). Also, another game I developed ages ago, Qwak, had a 2 player mode - where 2 little ducks run around the same 2D environment throwing eggs, collecting stuff, and keys, then racing for the exit door to the next level before deadly spikes start falling from the ceiling (it was all a bit frantic, fast paced, out of the frying pan and in to the fire kind of Bubble Bobble on speed, affair).

I love 2 player in video games, hard to say exactly why, I guess it's partly the unpredictable random ways people can interact with each other within a computer simulated reality; it feels like a richer deeper experience than just interacting with a computer.

Hi Liz, no hard deadline as such but if we said no later than 2 weeks from now would be good so I can get it submitted by the beginning of July.

Also Jamie, I think you're getting mixed up, we're talking about 2 player board games here!

Lizzy wrote:I used to write videogame reviews for a website in another life and I've been meaning to have a go at board game reviews. I can probably write a bit about Netrunner. When do you need it by?

Liz, no I think about it, if you wanted to do a full review then you're more than welcome to do so. Just to be clear though, the site doesn't pay for content, it's run by volunteers. However your articles are your own and free to be published elsewhere if you wish to put them elsewhere. Also we often get lots of codes for games sent to us by publishers for us to review which we obviously get to keep afterwards. I recently got a copy of Battlefleet Gothica to review. Unfortunately I didn't like it that much!

First PM in from Rik, thanks pal!

Jamie wrote:My last published game (check out Retro Racing on an iPad) had quite a significant 2 player component (head to head racing on the same device). Also, another game I developed ages ago, Qwak, had a 2 player mode - where 2 little ducks run around the same 2D environment throwing eggs, collecting stuff, and keys, then racing for the exit door to the next level before deadly spikes start falling from the ceiling (it was all a bit frantic, fast paced, out of the frying pan and in to the fire kind of Bubble Bobble on speed, affair).

I love 2 player in video games, hard to say exactly why, I guess it's partly the unpredictable random ways people can interact with each other within a computer simulated reality; it feels like a richer deeper experience than just interacting with a computer.

You developed Qwak?! Was it you I bought a GBA port off of a few years back?

Sorry, off topic, I know.

So who does the ad money go to? I'll write you something tonight.

There was talk at one point of having a 2-player game day, there's loads of games I'd like to try that I haven't played yet.

Meurig wrote:You developed Qwak?! Was it you I bought a GBA port off of a few years back?

Yep.

Also, yes, I did a limited run of 300 GBA carts of Qwak (which was essentially same as the Amiga version), you probably got it off me. Small world!

Small world indeed! Nice game, by the way. I was totally rubbish at it though.

Sam wrote:So who does the ad money go to? I'll write you something tonight.

Cool thanks. The couple that run the site would get any ad money I guess. I think there are like 2 ads on there currently. A banner at the top for a book which is actually written by one of the site owners and another for a company who sell gaming related t-shirts and hoodies etc. This isn't PC Gamer where they bombard you with popups and all that crap.

I feel like most videogame journalists who get paid to write barely know a damn thing anyway, and most of the interesting things you'll read are in forums or on random independent sites from people with some passion for the subject, who probably don't know what an Oxford comma is but actually have something interesting or funny to say. Not that you can't get paid to write, but I feel like once you write to get paid the whole gig is up and it's time to go back to screwing tops onto toothpaste tubes or something.

That said... I kind of feel that if a site is making money the first people be rewarded should be the writers. Gaminglives.com actually has more noticeable ads than PC Gamer. I even turned of my ad-blocker to check.

But I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud. I've PMed the review. I'm guessing you have or will have at least one other review for the same game.

For those that have played Star Wars: Rebellion or Game of Thrones: The Card Game: I'd be really interested in hearing some thoughts on them. Do your duty.

I love video games and have always played them a lot but never really read video game journalism and wouldn't trust any of them. It's weird.

Sam wrote:I feel like most videogame journalists who get paid to write barely know a damn thing anyway, and most of the interesting things you'll read are in forums or on random independent sites from people with some passion for the subject, who probably don't know what an Oxford comma is but actually have something interesting or funny to say. Not that you can't get paid to write, but I feel like once you write to get paid the whole gig is up and it's time to go back to screwing tops onto toothpaste tubes or something.

That said... I kind of feel that if a site is making money the first people be rewarded should be the writers. Gaminglives.com actually has more noticeable ads than PC Gamer. I even turned of my ad-blocker to check.

But I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud. I've PMed the review. I'm guessing you have or will have at least one other review for the same game.

For those that have played Star Wars: Rebellion or Game of Thrones: The Card Game: I'd be really interested in hearing some thoughts on them. Do your duty.

Got the review thanks! To be honest it's been a while since I last went on the PC Gamer site but I was bombarded by pop ups etc when I did which put me off. I agree that sites making lots of money via advertising etc should reward their writers, I'd hate to be a professional writer trying to scratch out a living. We don't get money that's true, but that's not because GL doesn't want to pay us it's because they make next to bugger all from the ads. Like I mentioned the main ad along the top is promoting a book written by one of the joint owners of the site. Then there is the clothes store which now that I mention it I think is affiliated with the other site owner in some way. GL doesn't write sponsored content and doesn't accept payment for "good" reviews. I can vouch for this. However us writers do get rewarded in other ways. Firstly our editors are great, I've learned a hell of a lot over the years including what an Oxford comma is; 2 of our writers have gone on to professional writing jobs after honing their craft with GL, another 3 have landed jobs in the games industry with GL on their CV's (2 at EA and 1 at Nintendo Europe), finally we are able to get press passss for events like Gamescom and E3. We've been to 3 E3's and a couple of Gamescoms and I think a few PAX's. Finally the free games are nice, they aren't always triple A titles of course but you have to take the good with the bad.

Just mention E3 and it sounds like a pretty good deal — I've always wanted to go! I watch all the press conferences each year. Sony (re)revealing The Last Guardian, Shenmue III and the Final Fantasy VII remake last year was like hearing Kurt Cobain had faked his death and was coming out with a new album. This year was pretty good too. New God of War, new Zelda, new Resident Evil, new Dishonored, and a few cool new IPs too.

By the way, Lizzy: where did you write these videogame reviews? I'd love to read them!

Sam wrote:By the way, Lizzy: where did you write these videogame reviews? I'd love to read them!

Ditto!

That's 2 reviews in my article now and with Liz's it will be 3. Do we have anymore takers? Would like at least 1 more if anyone is interested?!

I'll do one. Need to decide on a game first

Thanks John!

They were for ablegamers.com so a lot of it is about the accessibility of each game. I generally started with a normal review of the game though. They should still be there, but it was a long time ago so I wouldn't dare read them back now!

Hey guys this went live today:

http://www.gaminglives.com/2016/07/01/acoustic-gaming-the-2-player-game-players-guide-to-2-player-games/

Thanks to everyone who contributed and apologies if yours didn't make it in the end. It was a lot of fun, I hope to another one in the future.