Love Letter - Quick Pour

Recently, I have been having a bunch of friends come over and visit me, or I have been going out to catch up with them. Whether it’s in cafes, restaurants, or in the park, I tend to grab my copy of Love Letter, which conveniently comes in a small velvet bag. I love this because it always amuses me (and all my friends) when I pull this out of my jacket pocket.

But do not be fooled by the small package, this game is devilishly addictive and is exactly perfect for 2 to 6 players. Explaining the rules to new players might take you a little while and I often find that by the time I get to explaining the final card’s rule, I am faced with blank and emotionless expressions to which I generally follow up with, “Let’s play a round or two. You’ll get it.”

The gameplay in Love Letter is simple. Each player has a single card in their hand, so on their turn, they must first draw a card from the draw pile, decide which one they want to use, and place that card face up in front of them for everyone to see. They then take the action of that card they just put down. The game’s objective is to gain a favour from the Princess. This thematically makes so much sense because you use the cards’ actions based on the roles to stop the other players, or suitors in this case, from successfully delivering their love letter to the princess. So the cards here are all the typical characters you might encounter in a royal palace, and as a potential suitor, you must manipulate them to get to the princess. If at any point you lose your hand, you are out of the game. With the guard, if you guess another player’s hand correctly, they’re out of the game. Or with the Baron, if you compare your hands with another player of your choice, whoever has the lower-valued card is out of the game. The King allows you to trade your hand with another player, and so on.

The funny twist is that there is only 1 princess card, which is the highest-valued card in the deck, and if at any point you discard it, you instantly lose. You would hate to have this card or draw it in the beginning, but towards the end of the round it becomes crucial. Once the draw deck is out of cards, either you become the last player standing or the player with the highest hand wins the round and gains a favour token.

Love Letter is a pure deduction game and the best part is you never have to lie about your hand. You just need to be a good guesser. Just play a few rounds with newbies, and watch them fall in love with this game. They might love it so much, that they’ll consider writing letters about it to all their friends and family.