Just recently bought Twilight Inscription (single player games) and I love it. Favorite type of game is deck builder. Favorite game of all time is Cosmic Encounters.
I've played some Star Realms which is a tight 2P fun space deck builder. May need to agree a health handicap for 1 of the players before starting, to even out the skill levels.
Shards of Infinity is fun 2-4P deck builder with an apocalyptic fantasy theme. It does not have the 'kill a card from your opponent' mechanism, which can be an annoying time in other games that can see someone start a round 3 cards down.
I've only had one play of Cosmic Encounter and it was a great back and forward battle. For a similar feel and era, take a look at the 1979 asymmetric Dune game made by the same team as Cosmic. It has a 2019 art reskin too.
Yamataï gets too little of love. It's a game with a beautiful table presence and with interesting mashup of mechanics that are really on the lighter spectrum.
Radlands is currently my favorite two-player card game. It plays smoothly, has a vibrant color palette and although I would appreciate the game mat I enjoy the game on the clean table as well. I like the action queue mechanic in the form of ongoing events, back-and-forth dynamics and energy (water) management.
I was looking at getting Radlands this morning too. It has been on my list for a year or so and keeps coming up as having something special. I really like the Radlands theme also (possible 2000ad inspired).
I've played Architects of the West Kingdom one time also and liked it a lot.
I've never heard of Yamataï either, which is surprising because we love Kanagawa and have played it many times. It looks equally elegant and calming.
Ark Nova, a Feast for Odin, and Barrage. All are more complex games but each one has meaty choices, tons of decision space and variability, and are just pure fun the whole time.
Haven't heard of Barrage before and it looks fantastic(and high scoring on BGG, 8.2). From the same designer as Barrage(Simone Luciani) are Newton and Lorenzo il Magnifico which I admire. His Grand Austria Hotel I find to also have an excellent and challenging decision space, which is always enjoyable to work through, even though I am really bad at winning in GAH.
I've been looking out for a year to play Ark Nova or Feast for Odin at our local game club meetups, both have appealing themes and reportedly solid gameplay.
Barrage is really fun and really intense. Tons of interaction out in the mountains, trying to get your network out before others. I am terrible at it but still enjoy it every time. Ark Nova and Feat for Odin are my top 2 favorite games right now. Just pure joy to play them every time.
Yes, thank you! I was looking at buying Mottainai this morning.
I've only played 1 it time on yucata.de and was not sure of the mechanics at the start of play.. and then not sure of the mechanics at the end of play, but the theme is beautiful and it also gets high praise.
I've never heard of Brian Boru before and it looks like exactly one of the genres I like, Celtic with quality gameplay. Thanks for this recommendation. (c:
We love:
Horrified
Endeavor: Age of Sail
Talisman (just bought the Harry Potter version but haven't played it yet)
Cascadia
Ticket to Ride
Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle
National Parks
Cascadia is part of a trio of tile-placement games from publisher Flatout Games. You may like the other ones also.
The other two are Calico(cats and quilts) and Verdant(make the nicest houseplant arrangements).
We play Calico at home at 2P and it is a great positional puzzler with a cute theme. Can be very satisfying when placing your last 2 tiles and completing 3 different scoring conditions. More often though the draw bag will give you an unwanted hex to mess up part of your perfect quilt symmetry. Fun either way, and still plays well at 4P.