Love Letter is a wonderful player elimination card game. It packs a huge punch for a game made of 13 cards. It fuses luck, deduction, and strategy very well. On the Board Game Fight Club Podcast we rate games to see if they are a C.H.A.M.P.

Charisma (theme, components, art, flavor)
How it plays (gameplay/mechanics)
Ability to learn (learning curve)
Makes it to the table (replay-ability)
Phun (overall fun)

Each criteria can score from 0-2 for a maximum of 10 points.

Love letter has decent Charisma. The theme is kind of plastered on, you can almost put any theme on it and it would work. Thus the great iterations such as Batman Love Letter, Lovecraft Letter. etc. HOWEVER, the idea that you are passing your letter through the court to get to the princess, and trying to sabotage other suitor’s letters fits this game well. The art works well with the theme, beautiful(maybe Victorian style), and the iconography is clear. The velvet bag my version came in is wonderful. and the cards standard quality, with nice weight to them. 

Strategy, deduction, and a little luck, are all necessary to defeat your opponents in Love Letter. I really like how each card has a specific job, you clearly know what each card does from the reference card, but it is also written on the cards itself. You must pay attention to what has been played, and use that to your advantage. It is so easy to learn, once you understand how the turns work, draw a card play a card, the rest is learned by doing. Strategy is not something you can teach. Replay ability is high, because of how quick the games go, and every game is different.

The “tokens of affection” determine game length, 7 are needed to win a 2 player game, 5 for a 3 player game, and 4 for a 4 player game. Each round takes between 1-3 minutes, with a max of 13 rounds. Games are about 20-30 minutes, but my friends and I usually just play this without the tokens, and just play until our, and the princess’, heart is content. 

LOVE LETTER SCORES AS FOLLOWS:

Weightclass: Featherweight 1/5

C-1 (loose but cute theme not tied to game, component quality as expected)
H– 2 (great fast pace mechanics to make for fun super interactive gameplay)
A– 2 (13 cards in the whole game, anyone can learn!)
M– 1 (great filler game for any collection super lightweight)
P– 1 (quick fun game, I see used as fillers on game night)

OVERALL SCORE- 7/10