Publisher: AEG
Designer: Seiji Kanai
Artists: Andrew Hepworth and Jeff Himmelman
Year: 2012
Genre: Fast playing card game of deduction and luck
Players: Two to four players
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 20 Minutes
MSRP: $9.99
Once again AEG has thrown me a curveball and this time it’s the fourth in their line of City State of Tempest games. When I first spied Love Letter my first thought just was how much fun could be packed into a game which is essentially made up of sixteen cards? Interestingly enough Love Letter is quite a lot of fun and one of the best light ramp up games currently on the market.
As I’ve mentioned previously, the Tempest games take place in a shared game world and many of the characters and events carry over from title to title. Although Love Letter is number four in the series, the events take place between the first (Courtier) and second (Mercante) games as Queen Marianna has been arrested for high treason and the Princess Annette has locked herself away in despair. These events haven’t stopped the flow of suitors for the princess’s hand in marriage though. All of this is summed up in a short bit of fiction at the beginning of the small rule book.
With Love Letter you receive sixteen character cards, four player aid cards, thirteen red cubes used as tokens of affection for scoring, a small 24 page booklet with the rules, and a velvety bag to carry all the contents. All of this easily fits in a jacket pocket for easy transport. The character cards are broken into the following: one princess, one countess, one king, two princes, two handmaidens, two barons, two priests, and five guards. Each card is also given a value from one to eight and the higher the value the closer to the princess the card is considered. Obviously, the princess holds the highest value of eight while the guards carry a value of one. Each card also has a special ability printed on it which activates once the card is played. These include discarding a hand of cards, looking at another player’s hand, ignoring the effects of other cards, trading hands with another player, and so on.
The components are pretty nice for a title carrying an MSRP of less than ten bucks but I strongly urge anyone picking up the game to sleeve the cards. I’m not saying the cards are horrible but they are a bit flimsy, and since you will continually be shuffling the deck, you’ll want to protect those cards as a major part of gameplay is not letting your opponents know what you have in hand.
The object of the game is to acquire tokens of affection and the game ends once the required number is gained by one of the players. Since the game is for two to four players the tokens needed to win are dependent upon the number of players; four in a four player game, five for three players, and seven for two players. Getting started with the game is a snap as you simply shuffle the cards and, depending on the number of players, secretly remove cards from the deck. If you’re playing with two players four cards are removed and set aside while a three or four player game only sees you remove one card. This allows for a bit of randomness although it won’t take long to figure out what cards paren’t in the deck.
Players begin the game by drawing a single card from the deck. During your turn you’ll also draw a card from the deck and then play one of the two cards in hand in front of you. The card which is played (or considered discarded in this case) has the ability displayed on the card take effect. Then the player to your left takes their turn. This continues until no cards remain in the deck or only one player is still active in the round. At this point the players remaining reveal their card in hand and the highest score wins that round and gains a token of affection. In the case of a tie, the player who discarded the highest value card is the winner. Staying in the round is easier said than done because there are cards which can knock a player out of the round pretty quickly; the prince is a good example here as you can choose a player to discard their hand when that card is played. Although the princess card holds the highest value she can be a tough card to have in hand because you automatically lose a round if she’s discarded.
Each round is considered to be a day in the palace and as each round ends the winner is considered to have had the princess read their letter and moving closer to capturing her heart.
The gameplay is deceptively simple but has a quality about it where players will easily get into the fast and frantic pace of the game. It should only take a game or two, and those are pretty short as even a four player game can be completed in no more than twenty minutes or so, to get a vibe of what each card does and how best to play your cards on your turn. The four player aid cards go a long way in helping to understand the abilities and the number of each card located in the deck.
I really like what AEG has been doing with the Tempest line to this point and Love Letter is an excellent addition to someone’s collection of games to warm up or wide down an evening at the gaming table. I will point out to have a chance to win you need to play aggressively and to succeed you’ll need to take it to your opponents. This may not appeal to those who want absolutely no confrontation in their game play and many times all the players will need to gang up on the leader in affection tokens but I think for the majority of gamers out there this won’t be a problem. Love Letter is also very appealing for non-gamers and should be a hit at family gatherings.
I can say a four player game moves very nicely and is a ton of fun. I’ll take a stab a three player game will play just as well but I have reservations about only playing with two players as I don’t think there’s going to be that same element of fun with only two people. I can’t say for sure because I haven’t given the game a run with just two players but my gut tells me the experience of Love Letter won’t be as stellar with just a couple of gamers at the table.
Another item of note is it can be rather easy to cheat while playing Love Letter (this is even mentioned in the rules themselves) but if you’re playing with people who would cheat in a light, fast game like this – or any game really – you may want to start looking for a new gang in which to hang.
Overall, Love letter is a quick and addicting game which is going to please quite a lot of gamers out there as it certainly has me impressed. As I mentioned at the opening, AEG seems to love tossing change ups at me as I wasn’t sold on Smash Up until I got my hands on it and loved it. Love Letter struck me in the same vein – not sure what the folks at AEG were thinking – as I compared it to the other three much larger Tempest games and wasn’t sure if there was any meat on these bones. Thankfully AEG once again proves my initial reaction completely wrong and provides a great experience packed into a mighty small and attractively priced package.
