Love Letter (card game)

Love Letter is a card game introduced in May 2012 and designed by Seiji Kanai. Its first English-language edition was produced in the United States by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) until 2018, when Love Letter was acquired by Z-Man Games (a subsidiary of Asmodee).

Premise

Each player aims to deliver a love letter to the Princess with the assistance of relatives and acquaintances.

Gameplay

At the start of each round, one card is discarded face-down (four cards with three of them face-up if playing with two players; so the process of elimination cannot be used to prove which cards are left for the round), one card is dealt to each player and the rest are deposited face-down in the middle to form a draw deck.
During each player's turn, one card is drawn from the deck and the player gets to play either that card or the card already in their hand.
After processing the effect described on the played card, the next player to the left gets a turn.
This process is repeated until either the deck runs out, in which case the player holding the highest-value card wins the round, or all players but one are eliminated, in which case the last player still in play wins the round.
Once a round ends, the winner of the round receives a favor token. All cards are collected and shuffled, and play continues with a new round, with the winner of the previous round taking the first turn.
The game ends when one player has accumulated a predetermined number of favor tokens (from 3 to 7, depending on the number of players), winning the game for that player.

Card types

Below is the list of cards in the original edition of the game:

Premium edition

A premium edition of Love Letter was released in 2016. It uses the same artwork as the original, with larger cards printed on a heavier card stock. Additionally, many of the cards other components have also been upgraded.

The premium edition supports up to eight players. While the game is identical to the first edition when played with up to four players, there are sixteen additional new cards for games with five or more players. These cards include nine new roles to the game alongside three additional Guards featuring new artwork. Below is the list of cards in the premium edition:

Second Edition

A second edition of Love Letter was released in 2019 with new artwork and the addition of five cards to support up to 6 players. This edition carries over all the cards from the original version and adds two new roles, Spy and Chancellor. Additionally, the strength values of the King, the Countess and the Princess are all increased by one to 7, 8 and 9 respectively. This allows the Chancellor to slot in at strength 6, while the Spy is assigned the previously unused strength 0. An additional Guard card has also been added. Below is the list of cards in the second edition:

This edition can also be played in accordance with the original version by removing the five additional cards, though this only supports 2–4 players.

List of editions

In addition to foreign language editions, there are many themed editions, often with unique rules not found in the original game. Below is the partial list of all known Love Letter editions, in chronological order of release: