Love Letter (game)

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Love letter
Game data
author Seiji Kanai
graphic Noboru Sugiura (1st edition),
Andrew Hepworth (2nd edition),
Jeffrey Himmelman (2nd edition)
publishing company Kanai Factory / Japon Brand ,
Alderac Entertainment Group ,
Pegasus Spiele
and others
Publishing year 2012
Art Card game
Teammates 2-4
Duration about 20 minutes
Age from 8 years

Awards

Love Letter is a card game by the Japanese game designer Seiji Kanai . It was first published in Japan in spring 2012 in a small edition by Kanai Factory and Japon Brand , before the Canadian game publisher Alderac Entertainment Group became aware of the game and in autumn 2012 brought out a revised edition for the English-speaking region as part of its Tempest game series. In September 2013, Pegasus Spiele published the game in German.

Love Letter was included in the recommendation list for "Game of the Year" 2014 and won 4th place at the " German Games Prize 2014 ", and it also achieved 3rd place at the " À la carte card game award 2013 " (AEG Edition) as well as second place in the following year (Pegasus Edition).

Game idea and material

Love Letter is a card game with deduction and bluff elements in which players try to win a princess' heart by sending her love letters. This happens through different people at the royal court, whereby higher-ranking people have a better chance of forwarding such a love letter. You win if you manage to have a certain number of love letters delivered.

  • 16 person cards
  • 12 red tokens ("signs of affection")
  • 4 overview maps

Game flow

The game is played over several rounds. At the beginning of each round, the 16 character cards are shuffled face down and placed in the middle as a pile. Each player receives a card that he keeps secret from his fellow players. During the rest of the game, the players only keep one card in hand - the person who is currently carrying the love letter.

It is played in turn. When it is a player's turn, he draws another card face down from the stack and then chooses one of the two cards that he wants to discard. Each card shows one of eight people at the court, their position in the form of a card value (1–8) and a special effect that comes into effect when the card is discarded:

  1. The guard (5 ×, value 1) allows you to guess the hand of another player when you discard it. If the guessing player is correct, the corresponding player is eliminated, otherwise nothing happens.
  2. The priest (2 ×, value 2) makes it possible to look at another player's hand card.
  3. The baron (2 ×, value 3) triggers the comparison of your own hand card with that of another player. The player with the lower card is eliminated.
  4. The maid (2 ×, value 4) protects the player from the effects of discarded cards of the other players for one round after discarding.
  5. The prince (2 ×, value 5) allows you to name a teammate (or yourself) who then discards his hand card and has to draw a new one from the stack.
  6. The king (1 ×, value 6) enables the remaining card to be exchanged for that of a fellow player.
  7. The Countess (1x, value 7) is the second highest card in the game, but it must be discarded if the other card in hand is the King or Prince.
  8. The princess (1 ×, value 8) is the highest card in the game and beats every other card in a comparison. However, if a player has to discard this card, he is immediately eliminated.

Due to certain card functions, players are eliminated in the course of the round. If there is only one player left, he wins the round and receives a "sign of affection" from the princess. A round can also end when the cards from the deck are used up, in which case the players compare their hand cards to determine a winner.

Whoever can acquire a certain number of "signs of affection" first wins the game.

reception

The reviews of Love Letter were consistently positive. The reviewers praised it as a casual, entertaining game that is easy to explain and, despite the simple rules and comparatively few game material, offers a lot of fun, especially as a “nightcap” or as a game for in between. The game offers the most fun in rounds with three or four players, whereas the game for two was less convincing.

History of origin

In an article on the history of development, game author Seiji Kanai explains that the idea of ​​developing a card game with only 16 cards originated in 2010 at the Japanese game fair Game Market. There the game designer Takuya Saeki proposed a project to develop a game with a retail price of no more than 500 yen (around 4.40 euros at the time). Kanai decided to make the necessary savings on materials, taking advantage of a print shop's special offer to print a sheet of 16 cards. The project resulted in the card game RR (Regality & Religion) for two people, which managed with these 16 cards.

Kanai pursued the idea of ​​developing games that get by with little material. In 2011, R was another card game for two people, which also only consisted of 16 cards. The author wanted to create a game that could be played by three or even four people. This ultimately brought him to the mechanism on which Love Letter is based: holding a card in hand, drawing a card, playing a card. Since the deck of cards was used up very quickly with only 16 cards, he added the elimination of players as a necessary game element and adjusted the functions of the cards to eliminate other players through a deductive approach .

The graphic design of the first edition of Love Letter was done by Noboru Sugiura , who had previously illustrated RR , R and other games by the author. Kanai presented the game with a small edition at the Game Market game fair in the spring of 2012, where John Zinser and Mark Wootton from the Canadian game publisher Alderac Entertainment Group became aware of the game. The publisher decided to include the game in its newly created game series Tempest , which at the time included three other games. The rules of the game were adopted almost unchanged, but the game material was revised and provided with new illustrations by Andrew Hepworth and Jeffrey Himmelman . The publisher presented the English edition of Love Letter together with the other Tempest games at “ Spiel 2012 ” in Essen.

In September 2013 Pegasus Spiele published Love Letter in German with minor changes to the game rules and the game material. In the German instructions, however, the short introductory story and the names of the characters are missing, which in the English edition create a connection to the other games in the Tempest series.

Derivatives

Kanai Factory Edition

In 2013, Alderac Entertainment Group released a special edition of the game called Kanai Factory Edition . This uses the original card ranks and rules of the game as well as the original illustrations by Noboru Sugiura. The edition also includes two special cards that can be used in place of the princess.

Love letter big box

In 2016, the Love Letter Big Box was released, a version of the game for up to eight players with slightly larger cards. The game contains 32 character cards, which in addition to the 16 cards from the basic game contain 16 other character cards and an additional fool's card:

  1. The guard (3 ×, value 1) corresponds to the guard . When discarded it allows guessing the value of another player's hand card. If the guessing player is correct, the corresponding player is eliminated, otherwise nothing happens.
  2. The assassin (1 ×, value 0) has no direct function. If a player who the assassin was on hand, by a guardian or a guardian questioned the questioning person retires from the game.
  3. The court jester (1 ×, value 0) chooses any other player and places the jester card in front of him. If this player wins the game, the fool's player also gets a heart.
  4. The cardinal (2 ×, value 2) chooses any two players, including himself, who swap their hand cards.
  5. The baroness (2 ×, value 3) chooses one or two other players. They have to show him their hand card.
  6. The flatterer (2 ×, value 4) chooses any player, including himself. If the next player leads a person with a role in which he is to choose a player, he must choose the same player that the flatterer has chosen.
  7. The Count (2 x, value 5) has no direct function. ... However, it has the following special feature: If at the end of the round another player has a count in his discard pile and the winner is determined by comparing the values ​​of the cards in hand, the count increases the value of his hand card by 1. If he has both counts, it increases the value by 2.
  8. The marshal (1 ×, value 6) has no direct function. After playing it is put into your own discard pile; If a player is eliminated from the current round and the marshal is in his discard pile, he immediately receives 1 heart.
  9. The king's widow (1 ×, value 7) chooses any other player and compares the value of the remaining card with the value of the card of the chosen player. The player with the higher value is eliminated immediately.
  10. The bishop (1 ×, value 9) is next to the princess the highest card in the game and in a comparison beats every other card except the princess (despite the higher value). When discarded it allows guessing the value of another player's hand card. If the guessing player is correct, the player receives a heart and the guessing player exchanges his card for a card from the draw pile without being eliminated.

The rules of the Love Letter Big Box are the same as in the base game and vary slightly in some details.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Japan Boardgame Prize 2012 (English)
  2. ↑ The Diana Jones Award 2013 - Nominees (English)
  3. ↑ a b À la Carte Price 2013
  4. ↑ Gouden Ludo 2013 ( Memento of the original dated December 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.goudenludo.be
  5. ↑ Hra roku - Official website (Czech)
  6. ↑ a b Game of the Year 2014
  7. ↑ a b German Games Prize - Prize Winner 2014 ( Memento of the original from December 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the Friedhelm Merz Verlag website @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.merz-verlag.com
  8. ↑ a b à la carte price 2014
  9. ↑ Simon Kriese: Review at spieletest.at from June 15, 2013
  10. ↑ Birgit Irgang: Review by H @ LL9000 from July 19, 2013
  11. ↑ Bernadette Beckert: Review at Cliquenabend.de from August 8, 2013
  12. ↑ Ingo Hackenberg: Review and video description at spielkult.de
  13. ↑ Dirk Trefzger: Review at Spielmonster.de
  14. ↑ Seiji Kanai: Creating a Love Letter ( Memento of the original from December 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , October 1, 2012, article on the Alderac Entertainment Group website @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alderac.com
  15. ↑ Love Letter - Kanai Factory Edition ( Memento of the original from December 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the Alderac Entertainment Group website @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alderac.com