Love Letter

"A game of risk, deduction and luck"

What's included: 16 playing cards, 13 tokens of "affection", four reference cards, a rule book and a red velvet carrying pouch.

The story goes like this: You are a suitor attempting to woo the princess with your eloquent love letters but in order for them to reach her you must get it into the hands of the person closest to her. Each card character carries a rank in the top right and the higher the value the closer to the princess they are. Each character has it's own special ability or disadvantage so play them wisely! The one who receives the most tokens of affection wins... in our 2 player case 7 is the golden number!

 To begin playing:  Remove the top card and place it to the side face down, then (for 2-players) place the next 3 cards face up on top of it. 

Each player is dealt one card and the first player to begin draws one and plays one face down in front of them. As simple as that.  The player who has most recently dated goes first. <3

The Princess: She is the highest value card as she is your intended recipient, however, she is harder to hold onto than one might think and if you are forced to discard her due to another players card you lose the round.

The reference card: Will give you a list of cards, their abilities, as well as their value and the number per deck.

*This is valuable information as it can give players with certain cards (like the guard, or baron) an edge by doing simple probabilities.

For example: I play the guard and there is one prince in the pile to the side and my opponent just discarded the Countess (which must be discarded if caught with the king or prince) odds are very high that my opponent will either have the prince or king!  

   
Play through: Rounds 1-3
    The Baron 0wn'd me

 The Baron: when played the players compare hands and the player with the lower hand is out of the round.






Round Four: I forgot but sadly lost that hand as well. 

Round Five: The Baron Returns

 

Round Six:
I made it till the last turn... and lost to royalty.
If one player isn't eliminated before the draw pile is exhausted the players compare their final card and the one with the highest value wins... In this case my lowly 2-pt priest lost to the 8-pt Princess.

 Round Seven: Finishing StrongThis hand I lost before I could even play my first card. My opponent made and educated guess by calculating what was on the table and what his card limited him to. Since there is only one of each card remaining aside from the priest and the guard (which the ability restricts guessing) odds were slightly higher that the priest would be my card and indeed it was.

A few thoughts: Personally I really like this game despite my epic failure this match. The game is very inexpensive (~$6 on amazon when I got it), compact, amazingly simple in play and concept, and my favorite part: 15-20 min play time tops!  It's not the most fun I've had playing a game but some nights it's nice to take a break from complicated play procedures, hours of research, or quickly changing rules and play a quick game of wit and chance.