At the Essen 2025 event, we found three enjoyable new card games made for just two people. It’s no surprise that Geonil designed them all, as he seems to be quite good at making these kinds of games. I really like trick-taking games, and since I usually play with my partner, it’s great to have games made specifically for two players.
The first game is called Faust vs Mephisto, put out by Mandoo Games. It’s the newest in a series of story-based games, like Jekyll vs Hyde. This trick-taking game is different for each player. As Mephisto, your goal is to get Faust’s soul. You can do this by winning all the cards in any two of the four suits, or by not taking any cards in two suits. Faust’s job is to stop this from happening.
Each player picks a character and tries to win or lose tricks to reach their goal over two rounds. The cards are based on suits, and each suit has a different number of cards. There are four suits: red for love, blue for knowledge, yellow for power, and green for youth. Red cards can’t be played first, but they aren’t always the trump suit. How strong the suits are depends on how the cards are played. Tokens are placed on the board, Faust-side up. Each player gets their hand of cards and two coins.
The game board and suit tokens show how strong each suit is compared to the others. When the first card of a suit is played, it sets how strong that suit is. The next player must play a card of the same suit if they can. If both cards are the same suit, the higher number wins. If they are different suits, the stronger suit wins. The strength of the suits changes based on the order cards are played. The yellow power suit has a special rule to keep things interesting.
Another neat part of the game is that you can use one of your coins to make your opponent play a card for you. You can tell them which suit to play and if you want their highest or lowest card of that suit. If they don’t have that suit, they can choose another suit but still have to play the highest or lowest card you asked for. They can then use one of their coins to make you play a card for them. They have to do this before the round ends to keep the number of tricks played even.
When a round ends, if one player has won all the cards of a certain suit, that suit’s token is flipped to the Mephisto side. If two tokens are flipped, Mephisto wins right away. If three tokens are still face up, a second round is played. The suit tokens are reset, but the knowledge token stays where it was from the first round. Both players get two coins again. Faust wins if three tokens are still face up at the end of the second round.
Like in his other game, Jekyll vs Hyde, you have to be careful about when you decide which suits to go for. You need to balance waiting for a good move with possibly letting your opponent get ahead. The really tricky part of this game is how the coins work. Since two cards are left out each round, you don’t have all the information. You also have to remember that the suits have different values and numbers of cards. There are a lot of good choices to make in this game.
Phantom of the Opera is a new version of a game Geonil made before, which was originally put out by Schemers. I wrote about the first game on this website. The new version from Korea Boardgames has clearer rules and looks very nice. It uses cloth game boards and tokens shaped like musical notes. One player plays as the Phantom, and the other as Christine. Players play tricks on a small game board made of musical notes. If the notes are dark or filled in, the Phantom can place a token on the note if they win the trick. The game then moves to the next note. If Christine wins, the note stays empty, and the next hand is played for the same note. For the white or empty notes, the Phantom tries to lose the trick to get a token. Like in Faust vs Mephisto, each player in this game has a different way to win.
The Phantom wins if they manage to cover all 12 notes by the end of the second round. Christine wins if she stops them from doing this.
The trick-taking part is also affected by trump cards and a special trump card, which are decided by the suit above the part of the music being played. Also, there’s a special number each round that the Phantom chooses first, and Christine chooses in the second round. When a card with that special number is played, players must immediately swap two cards, even if it happens in the middle of a trick. This back-and-forth play feels like the chase in the story. I really like how the theme is used in this game, and the gameplay is challenging.
Orbita, also from Korea Boardgames, seems to be inspired by two of Geonil’s earlier games, Ptolemy and Hipparchus. This game has a nice look, with shiny bits on the board and box. It has four suits, but no numbers on the cards. Like some other games, the strength of a suit is decided by the cards that are played.
One thing I really like about Orbita is that you can’t move your cards around. This is a clever idea that makes playing cards more interesting, like in the game Bohnanza. You can play one to three cards of the same suit, as long as they are next to each other in your hand. You place a token or planet on the board if it’s not already there, and move it around its orbit. If a space already has a token, you skip it. The number of spaces you move is the same as the number of cards you played. The player who played the cards for the highest-ranked planet wins the trick.
The tricky part is that the value of the spaces goes down after reaching the highest point. Another challenge is that one color might get left behind if the other colors move too far ahead. The winner of the trick collects all the cards from that trick and keeps them in piles, sorted by suit. After the hand is played, the cards are scored. Each suit is looked at separately. The player with the most cards in a suit gets points equal to the number of cards their opponent has in that suit. The person with the most points wins.
Orbita is a much smoother game than either Ptolemy or Hipparchus. It has fairly simple rules and ways to win, but it can be more challenging than you might think. You have to decide when to make a suit as strong as possible and when to make it weaker. This helps you control a suit while also making sure your opponent takes some cards so you can score points. It’s a very cozy game that offers a good challenge.
