A board game series that my family and I have enjoyed playing has been the Catan series. Settlers of Catan is a game where you earn points by settling hexagonal areas of the board in an effort to garner recourses before the other players. Doing this, in addition to settling, allows you to expand your territory and therefore further increase you available resources, and earning you some points. Each player starts with 2 settlements that they automatically get to place in any area of the board that they choose.
Rivals for Catan is a simple two player variant of the board game Settlers of Catan. Here, instead of a board and tiles, the players are provided with cards that make up the entirety of the recourses and areas that are represented in the base game. Each card has a number that is assigned to it for the purpose of recourse allocation. As each card is played, it either produces a recourse, or creates a building that supplies specific benefits to certain recourses. You win the game by earning points, by creating as many cities and towns as you can - similarly to Settlers of Catan.
One thing that I really liked about the game was that they provided a small barrier to help distinguish which cards belonged to which players. Overall this two player variant is very well done, comparable to the base game. As for accessibility, this game is very good for those who struggle with dyslexia because rather than words, the cards are all simply symbols and images. However, if you struggle to remember rules that can be and issue. Something that didn't help though, was just that, the rules are relatively complex in that there are several different cards with different rulings, making it so that to understand how each of them interacts with the game would take a lot of rote memorization. Something that I struggle with is fine motor skills, and with this game it was sometimes challenging to lace the cards in the correct orientation. Something I've done to get around such obstacles is to have a family member or friend sit next to me. That way if I have an issue I can ask them to adjust the positioning of the cards.
Overall, this game tends to be more difficult than the base game, but only when it comes to those with physical or mental handicaps. The game is still extremely fun to play, whether it is in a family setting or a more competitive setting amongst friends. If it were more accessible overall, I would also recommend it for people like me who have disabilities. If anyone struggles greatly with dyslexia and fine motor skills , I would recommend the base game over this one. However, it you are able to work around that - or if its not even an issue for you then this is quite an excellent game! Its pretty cheap too, costing only about 20$ on amazon to purchase, which I highly recommend.
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