2 player games on one screen
7 games on this site where a second person is the opponent: no account, no room code, no waiting for a match. Three are fast enough for both players to move at the same time; the rest are turn-based, so one device goes back and forth.
The games, and who presses what
Every row below is the mode the game actually ships with, and the keys are the ones printed in the game itself.
| Game | How two people play | Wins |
|---|---|---|
| Air Hockey | P1 on A / D, P2 on ← / →. On touch, each player drags in their own half. | First to 7 goals |
| Table Tennis | P1 on W / S, P2 on ↑ / ↓, or a drag in your own half. | First to 11 points |
| Reaction Duel | One key each: P1 presses A, P2 presses L. On touch, tap your side of the arena. | First to 5 rounds |
| Tic-Tac-Toe | Switch the mode button to 2 Players, then take turns clicking a square — keys 1–9 work too. | Three in a row |
| Connect Four | Switch the mode button to 2 Players, then click a column to drop a disc. Player 1 is red and drops first. | Four in a row |
| Mancala | Switch the mode button to 2 Players. Each player picks from their own six pits; the bottom row is Player 1. | Most seeds in your store |
| Dots and Boxes | Switch the mode button to 2 Players, then click the gaps between dots to draw lines. | Most boxes when the grid is full |
Two at once, or taking turns
Air hockey, table tennis and reaction duel are simultaneous: each player owns half the input, so nobody waits. On a keyboard that means one person on A/D and the other on the arrow keys; on a phone it means dragging in your own half of the screen. Reaction duel is the purest of the three — one key each, and the loser is whoever moves first.
Tic-tac-toe, connect four, mancala and dots and boxes are turn-based, which is the honest way to play a board game on one device: read the board, hand the phone over, play. Every one of them opens with a mode button, and switching it to 2 Players turns off the computer opponent for the rest of the round.
Which one to pick
Two adults, ten minutes: table tennis or air hockey if you want to move, dots and boxes if you want to think. Dots and boxes punishes carelessness in the last few boxes and rewards planning the chain, so it usually gets a rematch.
An adult and a child: reaction duel first — it is one key each and no reading, so a six-year-old can win against an adult. Tic-tac-toe next, because the rule is one sentence. Air hockey and table tennis are fine but the child will lose the reflexes for a while; the games are short enough that it still works.
Turn-based but competitive: mancala is the one with the most room for a plan. Free turns when a seed lands in your own store mean a good player can chain three moves, and losing track of the opponent's side is how most games are lost.
On one phone: air hockey and table tennis both take a drag in either half of the canvas, which is the closest thing to two people sharing a screen properly. The turn-based games do not need the sharing at all — pass the phone between moves.
What is not two-player yet
Be aware before you sit down with someone: checkers, reversi and battleship are still you against the computer — they have no second-player mode, so a second person can only watch. Battleship has the extra problem that a fair two-player game needs two boards hidden from each other, which is a different screen design rather than a mode switch. Checkers and reversi are next in line for the same 2 Players button the other four have.
The rest of the arcade (57 games) is single-player: scores, runs and puzzles. Classic board games collects the games that look like tabletop games, whether or not they take two players.