A Love Letter to Love Letter

Love Letter is one of those games that I heard a lot of wonderful things about but have avoided because I already have a solid collection of light and quick games in my board game collection. Now that the holidays are heading to a close, I decided to open up the copy that I had lying around as a possible gift for others.

The theme of the game is simple, In the wake of the queen’s arrest, all the eligible young men of Tempest (and many not so young) seek to woo Princess Annette. Unfortunately, she has locked herself in the palace, and everyone must rely on those within the palace to bring their romantic letters to her. Will yours reach her first?

You and up to three other players (2-4) each take turns trying to end a round with a person who is closest to the princess. The closeness is thematic and numbered, with the Handmaiden (4) being a better connection than a Guard (1).

At the end of each round the player with the person who has the highest value scores a token. The number of tokens needed to win varies with how many players there are. For instance, in a two player game a player needs seven tokens to win.

My wife and I played several games of Love Letter tonight in the living room and it was fast and fun! Some rounds were over very quickly with a lucky draw, however most of the rounds went back and forth a few times before one of us was awarded a token. As the game progressed each of us ended up taking turns in the lead, which made for exciting games.

The art on the cards is well done and the graphics are clear and easy to understand. The best part—to me—is that unlike most card games Love Letter eschews a box and instead gives you a cute red bag to hold the contents of the game.

I highly recommend this game and think that it’ll make a great addition to a game collection as a warm up or party game.

You could use it to pad a Cool Stuff Inc order for free shipping, or you can get it a little cheaper at Amazon.