Buy The Fox in the Forest for travel: it is cards only with a compact shared area, published 2 players at 30 minutes. Buy Jaipur if you want the easier teach and do not mind carrying goods tokens; it is also 2 players at 30 minutes.
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Both are two-player-only card games at 30 minutes, both are excellent, and both get recommended for travel. Only one of them is genuinely a tray-table game.
Footprint on a moving surface
The Fox in the Forest is trick-taking, which means the shared area is one trick at a time -- two cards. That is close to the smallest possible playing area for a real game, and it is why it survives a tray table.
Jaipur needs more: a five-card market laid out, plus goods tokens and three bonus token stacks arranged where both of you can reach. On a stable table that is nothing. On a train, a tray table, or a lap, it is a genuine problem -- tokens slide and the market gets disturbed.
03Teach time cuts the other way
Jaipur teaches in about five minutes to anyone. The Fox in the Forest assumes you already understand trick-taking -- following suit, trumps -- and layers greedy scoring on top of that. For someone who has never played a trick-taker, that is not a five-minute explanation, and doing it on a plane is worse.
So the honest answer depends on who is traveling with you. Experienced card players: Fox, every time. Teaching someone new on the trip: Jaipur, and accept the fiddlier setup.
The picks in full
2 players · 30 minutes · ages 10+
A trick-taking game for two that actually works, which almost no trick-taker manages.
A two-player-only trick-taking card game. Winning too many tricks makes you greedy and scores nothing, so the game is about landing in a narrow band -- and odd-numbered cards each break a rule.
- 2
- 30 minutes
- 10+
- Joshua Buergel
- Foxtrot Games / Renegade Game Studios
- 2017
Skip it if neither of you has played a trick-taking game before. The scoring rewards losing on purpose, and that lands badly cold.
Specs from The Fox in the Forest - Wikipedia infobox.
2 players · 30 minutes · ages 10+
The best first two-player card game there is: five minutes to teach, and it keeps giving for years.
A two-player-only trading card game. You collect and sell goods in sets, racing the other trader for bonus tokens that shrink as they are taken. Best of three rounds decides it.
- 2
- 30 minutes
- 10+
- Sebastien Pauchon
- Asmodee / GameWorks
- 2009
Skip it if you want a board on the table. This is cards and tokens, and it looks slight next to a game with a map.
Specs from Jaipur - Space Cowboys (publisher: players, time, age, designer, contents), Jaipur (card game) - Wikipedia infobox (2009 first edition, publishers).
