Created by: Seiji Kanai
Published by: Z-MAN Games/Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG)
Genre: Bluff micro-game
Number of players: 2-4
Play time: 20 minutes

Keywords

• Micro-game
• Bluffing
• Renaissance
• Social deduction
• Competitive

Short Description

Love Letter is a fast-paced social deduction game where you attempt to eliminate the other players while raising your own standing and staying in the game as long as possible. The objective of the game is to have the highest ranked card by the end of the game or to be the last player left in the game.

Themes

Love Letter’s main theme is intrigue within a royal court. The game is set in a Victorian era with a princess receiving mysterious love letters. The rest of the court (the players) are left to deduce who has been sending them. It could be a lowly palace guard in a forbidden romance, one of the wealthy barons who frequents the palace, or even the princess herself to create some scandal…

Mechanics

The game starts with all players being dealt one card from the deck and another  card being put aside for the round to make card counting harder. The player to the left of the dealer then draws one card from the deck and plays one of the two cards in their hand, causing an effect to trigger depending on the card. The game ends when there is one player left or when the deck runs out of cards. If the latter occurs, both players reveal their hands and whoever has the higher card is the winner of the round. The winner of the round will receive an affection token, signifying their point for the round, and the cards are dealt again. 

Photograph: Cameron Rottier

Key Components

• 16 cards numbered 1-8 (listed in ascending order)
  • 5 guards (guess another person’s card)
  • 2 priests (look at another person’s card)
  • 2 barons (compare cards, lower card is out of the game)
  • 2 handmaidens (cannot be targeted for one round)
  • 2 princes (force a player to discard a card)
  • 1 king (trade hands with another player)
  • 1 countess (discard if you have the prince or king in your hand at the same time)
  • 1 princess (if you discard the princess, you lose)
• 13 affection (round win) tokens
• 4 card lists

Photograph: Cameron Rottier

Annotated Bibliography

Bryant, Colby. “Review: Love Letter.” Geeks Under Grace, 16 Jan. 2020, www.geeksundergrace.com/tabletop/reviews-tabletop/review-love-letter/.

Colby Bryant’s review of Love Letter gives a brief description of the content of the game prior to diving into his thoughts on the game itself. He states that while the theming of the game was a negative for him at first, the gameplay caused him to grow to enjoy the game. He touts the game’s speed and simplicity, calling Love Letter a “microgame” with very short rounds and easily understood mechanics for newer players. This piece does an excellent job giving a brief overview of the game’s mechanics and allows those who may be looking to pick the game up a good idea of what they will be receiving.

Carlson, Matt. “Matt Carlson: Review of Love Letter.” The Opinionated Gamers, 20 July 2013, opinionatedgamers.com/2013/04/30/review-love-letter/.

Matt Carlson’s review of Love Letter gives readers a good idea of the mechanics of Love Letter by showing an in depth look at the game’s mechanics and gameplay while allowing other members of the site to chime in and rate the game as well. He rated the game as an “I Like It” on his custom scale, with four of the twelve members agreeing. Another four members said they love the game, and only one reviewer reviewed the game negatively. Many reviewers stated the game is a simple filler game to pass the time when you can’t sit down to play something more intense. The plethora of different inputs lets readers understand exactly what kind of experience they will receive if they pick the game up.

Lolies, Alex. “How to Play Love Letter: Board Game’s Rules, Setup and How to Win Explained.” Dicebreaker, Dicebreaker, 18 Dec. 2020, www.dicebreaker.com/games/love-letter/how-to/how-to-play-love-letter.

Alex Lolies has written an extensive guide on the rules and gameplay of Love Letter for newcomers and prospective buyers. She has included other videos of individuals playing and reviewing the game to assist readers in understanding how the game is played. Any reader will be more than well informed about what they are getting themselves into from Lolies’ description.

Pazehoski Jr., Bob. “Love Letter (2019) Game Review.” Meeple Mountain, 12 Dec. 2022, www.meeplemountain.com/reviews/love-letter/.

Bob Pazehoski Jr. writes his review on the 2019 version of Love Letter, which has tweaked and added a couple of cards in the set. However, Pazehoski Jr. also states that the added roles can be removed in order to play the original version of the game. He also goes over the multitude of versions of the game, including Batman, Adventure Time, The Hobbit, and Star Wars themed reskins. Pazehoski Jr. touts the universal nature of Love Letter and praises the ease and speed of the game as a whole, even mentioning that he will “stuff the game in his wife’s purse” for boring social events in case there is an opportunity to play. Readers and prospective buyers are sure to consider picking up one of the multiple versions of the game after reading this overview.

Yurko, Eric. “#718 – Love Letter [2019 Edition].” What’s Eric Playing?, 15 Feb. 2021, whatsericplaying.com/2021/02/15/love-letter-2019/.

Eric Yurko’s blog, titled “What’s Eric Playing?”, does a deep dive on the set up, gameplay, and strategies of Love Letter’s 2019 verison prior to giving his opinion through a list of pros and cons. The walkthrough is relatively straightforward, and the next bit of the piece goes in depth into how the game changes with multiple people and the different strategies for playing the game, including keeping track of the previous plays and knowing what cards combo into each other. With multiple pros and only one con listed, Eric gives Love Letter a score of 7.5 out of 10, stating that the game is an improvement compared to the 2012 version and tells prospective buyers to check out the game for themselves.

Keyword List

Themes

• Historical
• Royalty
• Renaissance
• Romance

Genre

• Micro-game
• Card game
• Portable
• Minimal

Mechanics

• Bluffing
• Card counting
• Victory points
• Competitive
• Strategy
• Social deduction