We have guest review of a tabletop game that has a romantic element. Huge thanks to Suzanne for submitting this review and thinking of the Bitchery.
In addition to raising two valkyries and tending a growing menagerie, Suzanne reads and reviews romance and comics in Southern New Hampshire. She runs a site devoted to romance comics and assists a couple of authors with their romance-writery needs as well.
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My husband and I play lots of board and card games, but we have small children, so I’m always scoping out new games that have a two-player option and don’t take hours to play. Love Letter fits the bill on both counts.
Before I get started, this review is based on the “Premium Edition” of Love Letter.
There are several variants, one of which is much cheaper and the only difference appears to be that the “tokens” aren’t heartshaped. Some of these variants have a different “flavor,” like Batman, Adventure Time, Legend of the Five Rings…it’s a whole series, I guess? They all have the same mechanic, so pick your poison.
In this edition of the game, your objective is to win the heart of a grieving princess. She’s holed up in her chambers, and the only way to win her affections is to send love letters via various members of her court. In a 2-player game, there are 16 cards total, divided unevenly between 8 levels of courtier. For example, the 5 Guards are each level 1. The Princess (only one of those for obvious reasons) is level 8. The other cards are 2 Priests, 2 Barons, 2 Handmaids, 2 Princes, a King, and a Countess. The game can accommodate up to 8 players, and for 5-8 players, you add another set of characters and the mechanics are slightly different.
Each of the character cards has a different effect, such as looking at another player’s hand, and these effects are pretty much what determines if you have the highest character value and win or lose a given round. In a 2-player game, you play until one player has 8 “tokens of affection,” cute red wooden hearts. On your turn, you draw a card and discard a card, following whatever the effect/action is on the card you’ve discarded. Sometimes this means you win the round on your first play. Sometimes the game forces you to lose the round. Sometimes, the best times, you get to actually strategize and manipulate your opponent(s) into losing.
The game is quick, especially once you have the card effects and point values memorized. It’s also sort of… boring? I was hoping that it would be more strategy-based, but in a 2-player game, there were too many rounds during which one or the other of us won the round without the other player even drawing a new card. This is one of the downsides to many games that claim to be suited for 2 or more players. Often, if a game is designed for a group, it’s not designed for dueling. Many games, such as Smallworld, Bohnanza, or Takenoko, have specific mechanics or boards for 2-player scenarios, which give the game a different dynamic and improve competition. This one appears to be played the same for 2-4 players, with the dynamic not changing until you hit 5 or more players.
In the end, I’m giving this game a C+. I liked the art, and I appreciated that the game is quick to learn and to play. I can’t recommend it for just two players, however, as it felt more luck-based than strategy-based. I’ve heard that it’s great as a party game, and I definitely think it’d pair well with a glass of wine and a group of friends. If you want to see it in action, Wil Wheaton’s boardgame show, Tabletop, did an episode with four players and they make it look like a lot more fun than my own experience.
I really enjoy Love Letter with 3 or 4 people, but agree with the C+ rating for 2 players. Hang onto it, it will be good to play with your kids when they are older. It also plays well with non-gamers.
My husband and I have the same criteria for games (quick play in under 30 minutes). Some of our favorites include Dominion, San Juan, Lost Cities, Carcassonne, King of Tokyo and Patchwork.
For people new to board games, a great resource is boardgamegeek.com. Their annual gift guides are a great starting point. Here’s the link to last years:
https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Board_Game_Gift_Guide_2016
Oooh – thank you for the link, Steph!
I can’t tell you how happy it makes me when I see a crossover between the things I love!
We are huge gamers! Five of us get together every weekend and play everything from fast paced to heavy strategy games.
I absolutely agree with the C+ rating for a 2 person Love Letter, and Steph’s comment about it being great for a small group. I would add Splendor to Steph’s list and also remind people that the old standard card game, cribbage, is wonderful for 2 people.
If you want more strategy that translates well to 2 players, you might check out Cthulu Realms.
While not great for 2 player households, there are some amazing cooperative games out there that make for fantastic game nights. Zombicide, Flashpoint, Mechs vs. Minions, Pandemic, and Betrayal at the House on the Hill to name a few of our favorites.
Also chiming in to say that Love Letter is one of those games that is technically playable with 2 but really designed for more. It’s just not that much fun with 2, because of the instant elimination mechanics auto-winning on the first round.
*also agrees* One of the places Love Letter also shines is that it’s so tiny you can keep it in a purse pocket or cargo pocket and start it up almost anywhere. A group of us at work used to play a few quick rounds on our lunch break, 4 of us crowded around a 2 person table, for a easy fast gaming fix.
Another light beginner friendly game that is designed specifically for 2 is Touring. The modern packs have flashier pictures than I’m used to, mine is the 1966 version. Game play is still the same though. It takes up more table space than Love Letter because you have a tableau (that thing like in solitaire where the cards spread down in columns) but it’s very simple to learn, built for 2, fast playing, small storage, and dirt cheap! (about 6-8 bucks). The rules include directions for playing as teams of 2 vs 2 also, but I don’t remember how well that actually works, haven’t played as teams since I was little. 🙂 Yay board-games!
I’m definitely intrigued by this with more players. Thanks for the review. (As another board gamer, I’m so into this!)
I was recently given the card game “Marrying Mr. Darcy” as a gift. I played it with two other people and we had a great time. Essentially, you play as one of the women in Pride and Prejudice, and you collect cards to acquire traits that make you marriageable to the man of your choice. At the end, you can also roll to be an old maid and reject marriage altogether. It was interesting what traits appealed to which grooms, etc. Here’s a link:
http://www.marryingmrdarcy.com/
I get that the rating is based on playing with 2 players but Love Letter is absolutely not a good 2 player game. It’s not that Wil Wheaton is making it fun… it is better with 4. With larger groups, it’s a blast, but 3 is the absolute minimum number of players I’d play with.
If you’re looking for good couple games, I’d recommend Jaipur or Patchwork.
Yup. Love Letter is my gaming group’s go to for a quick round when we’re waiting for others to arrive, but definitely not for two players.
I’ve also found that kids like it, with its big wins and losses that are easily recoverable.
Co-op games like pandemic and forbidden island can be played with 2 if you split the responsibility of a third player. What I mean is you still set up 3 players on the board and decide as a team what the imaginary 3rd person would do.
@Yota Armai
Both Pandemic and Forbidden Island should be fine with two players even without setting up an imaginary third player.
(I’ve actually played Forbidden Island with two players and it was fine. Don’t think I’ve played Pandemic with two players, but there isn’t anything in the game mechanics that should be a problem with two players.)
The hubby and I attend the Origins Game Fair in Columbus every year for our wedding anniversary – lately I’ve been lucky enough to score an author’s table in the Library so I get to sell books AND play games! We’ve been going for over a decade and highly recommend it if you’re in the area!
As for games… well, we’ve got over 300 on our shelves and Love Letter is a sweet one to pack away in my purse for instant fun! Another excellent pocket one is Ninja Dice, where you roll dice. (d’oh!)
Right now we’re in LOVE with all things from Plan B Games – Century: Spice Road was a hit at Origins and we’re waiting for our pre-order of Azul to arrive next month.
Gamer geeks? Yeah… 😀
I really enjoy love letter with two players; it’s how we usually play it. It is simple and chance heavy with two players, but it’s great for fifteen minute gaps when you don’t want something too heavy. It’s part of a series of games, each a different format, set in a fantasy world. We’ve also got Courtier, which is the game the queen gets arrested in, and Canalis. Courtier is a complicated alliance building game, and Canalis is a tile based resource collecting game (and isn’t very good, tbh). The others are 3+ players, so we’ve not tried them.
I’ll also add the both Forbidden Island and Pandemic work really well with two. They’re easier than with large groups because you can respond more quickly to events, but I can live with that 🙂
It was fun to see and read this review. I’d rate the game a little higher but that might be because we started out playing this as a two person game and only tried it with more later. It’s definitely portable, so my husband and I have taken it camping and played it on airplanes.
I’ve played it with three people and that does work. While the game was still pretty fast, there was never an instant win (or an instant loss) and it was pretty fun for the group.
I’ll also recommend “Codenames” for a party game (this needs at least 6).
Someone gave us Love Letter a couple of years ago and my daughters were immediately OBSESSED. They were 11 and 14 at the time and are still playing at 13 and 16. Only as a duo, since they tried roping me in once and I was not that into it. It’s a great gift and so portable, and the art’s cute.
My husband’s a gamer. He got Love Letter thinking I’d like it (I think it’s boring) but our six year old daughter loves to play it with him.
Ditto what MsCellanie said…Codenames is fun. Our kid loves that one, too, and I don’t mind playing it with them.
I’ve never played this, but I gave it to my boss’s daughters a couple of Christmases ago. He says they all still play it and take it along on camping trips since it’s portable (it came with a drawstring bag) and the games are relatively fast.
Thanks for the link @Steph, and for all the other recommendations here. Gift ideas are getting harder for me now that the girls are approaching their teens.
I played this with my old roommates and we would make up elaborate plots as we played about the various characters and their relationships (we do the same when we play Guillotine, lol)! It made it more fun for us, but while we enjoyed it it isn’t a game that we can play for hours.
I noticed Forbidden Island and Pandemic being mentioned and I just thought I’d throw in that if you like those and you like things that are kinda spooky, House on the Hill is an *awesome* table top game that I would highly recommend!
I’m volunteering at a game library this weekend and just played the new Codename Duet. They’ve adjusted the game mechanics for a 2 player game! It was more difficult than we thought, but fun.
Oh, so many gamers among the Bitchery! Why don’t you all live in my village? I love games, but my son is getting too old to play with mum, and my husband is an irregular gamer. Also my work hours make it hard for me to attend game nights…
But maybe someday soon I’ll get up my courage and put up an add to look for like minded ladies on my neighborhood.
I am not very competitive, and don’t want to work in a game. I just want the fun 😉 That means I am not compatible with the hard core gamers. But you give me hope that there are others like me.
I also have a good collection of games for two, and I see that some of my favorite are known in foreign parts! Do you also know Targi? Or Road Kill? Or the two person versions of Seven Wonders and Catan? Isle of Sky also works for two players, but it is even more fun with more people.
I love Love Letter, but found it much better in 4 players.
And I’ll second the Patchwork recommendations – it’s a great game (for two players only), not too complex or long, and yet with a great mechanic. Perfect for fans of Tetris. 😀
And Forbidden Island can also be great in two players. 🙂
There’s a variant of Love Letters called Rumpelstiltskin that is strictly a two player game, and it does involve a little more strategy. I definitely enjoyed it more than Love Letters with only two players.