This is a fun oddity from West End Games: the two player Lightsaber Dueling Pack.

Each player gets a character card – one for Darth Vader, one for Luke Skywalker – and a book for the character they aren’t playing. The books are illustrations of the characters in the midst of the duel. By taking the book of the character you aren’t playing, you’re getting to see your opponent as they are at that moment of the fight.

You fight by selecting attacks from your card and telling the page number to your opponent, who cross-references that against a changing number matrix of their own while you do the same (sounds complicated, but it is pretty simple). Each attack your character fields naturally puts restraints on what you can do next – if you are both in close you can’t choose to charge. This goes back and forth as you and your opponent spend force points and score hits until someone wins.

Not a bad little game. There’s a similar product keyed to a dogfight between an X-Wing and a TIE fighter that seems like a natural extension of the concept (I don’t own that, so I can’t be sure). I am actually surprised games like this and the D&D 1-on-1 adventures didn’t catch on. I wonder if we’ll see a revival of this in the future – the concept seems like a natural for porting to tablets.