Love Letter

How do you win?

Win a round in order to successfully deliver your letter to the princess and receive a Love Cube. The first player to collect a certain number of Love Cubes, which varies with the number of players, wins the game.

How do you play?

Each player is dealt a card and one card from the deck is removed from play. Each card has a character, a points value and an action on it. The more important a character is, then the higher the card’s points value, from the Princess at 8 points down to a Guard with only 1 point. You will use these characters to get your letter to the princess and they include different people such as the Priest, the King, a Handmaid and the Countess. There is only one card of the most valuable characters, but there are five guard cards, and two cards of most other minor roles between.

On a turn a player draws a card then decides which action from their two cards to play. Each of the nine characters has a different action, ranging from looking at another player’s hand (the Priest) to trading hands with someone else (the King) or guessing which card a person may hold and knocking them out of the round if correct (the Guard). The action of the chosen card is carried out, then the next player draws a card and decides which action to play from either of their two cards. This continues until either one player is left in the round, the others having all been knocked out, or if the draw deck runs out, then whoever holds the card with the highest points value wins.

Why play it?

The nuts and bolts of the game is using a Guard action to guess what another player may be holding. A lucky guess will knock that player out of the round and leave you feeling very satisfied, while an incorrect guess can still provide valuable clues. The game is all about collecting knowledge and using it in time before another player’s hand is redrawn.

Clues come from the character action you play or what other players do, such as noticing a particular character somebody has discarded, which they may have been forced to do depending on their hand. The race is on as everyone will then scramble to use this information against that player before he draws new cards, unless he was just teasing all along to draw out an incorrect guess from an opponent!

As the rounds progress, players will gang up on each other in order to knock players out, only to then quickly turn on each other to make the most of any knowledge among the group. Another quirk of play is that if somebody is (un)lucky enough to start with the Princess card, or pick her up during play, then they must work hard to avoid discarding her for the whole round, otherwise they are knocked out. This can lead to some tense moments, or to some assuming a nervous-looking player must be holding the Princess, only to be proved wrong when placing a guess.

A final word, remember that one card removed from play? This adds an element of unpredictability on each playthrough as any character card may have been removed – including the Princess herself!

Verdict?

Love Letter is a fun, highly replayable little game; great to play when travelling and not just because of the neat little velvet bag the game comes in! Also works well as a two-player game, but best with four.