We're So Board!

Episode 29 - Love Letter (Feat. The Geek Squared Show)

• We're So Board • Season 1 • Episode 29

Share episode

It's a podcast takeover!  The hosts of The Geek Squared Show are here to talk about Love Letter!  They're competing for the attention of the princess in this fast-paced card game.  Listen to find out how these lovable geeks try to bluff their way to the top but sometimes forget what they were doing.

THE GEEK SQUARED SHOW
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/thegeeksquaredshow/
email
thegeeksquaredshow@gmail.com

Support the show and fund the chaos!    

Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/geeksquaredshow)

Emma:

Hello and welcome. My name is Emma. I'm Tilly. And we are so bored. The Podcast where each episode we take a close look at a tabletop game and discuss our personal experiences with that game to help answer the question, will this cure your boredom?

Jake:

That's right, we looked at the mechanics complexity replayability and a game to determine if it's a perfect alternative to say,

Emma:

getting your podcast taken over by two hooligans. My name is Emma. I'm Tilly and we are the host of The Geek Squared Show, the show where we talk about the things that we talk about and fellow podcast friends of your lovable hosts, Jake and Rachel,

Tilly:

and this fine week, we are hosting this fine show. We're so bored.

Emma:

If our voices are new to your earholes a little bit about us. We are cousins. Like we said, we host the Geek Squared show. It's a pop culture podcast. Actually. It's a geek culture podcast where we talk about all the things that we love because we just love to talk we are literally always talking to each other theorizing discussing recasting word vomiting,

Tilly:

stressing for no reason, fictional characters, all the things

Emma:

that fellow geeks love to do. What are some of the things that we talked about Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Marvel, DC, Elder Scrolls game of thrones, Nintendo Mario Kart, so that's in tendo Pokemon, that's also the tendo. Alright, we ran out of things, but those are some of the things that we talked about. So if you have any interest in any of those things, please check us out at D Geek Squared show but enough about us for now. We're not here to promote unless we are we are going to talk about a fantastic game that we love called Love Letter.

Tilly:

For those of you that do not know what love letter is, it is a card game.

Emma:

It is a bluffing card game, something we are very fond of. You can play this game with two to six players and you all act as suitors in a royal court trying to get their love letter delivered to the princess. The game was designed by Seiji Kanye, and it was published in 2012. Though there was a second edition published in 2019 by Steve Kimball and Z Man games, that is the addition we have been playing. The main difference between the original version published in 2012. And the second edition, published in 2019, is an updated character design. And it also adds two spies and more guards. But we'll get into that

Tilly:

later. Shout out to Jake and Rachel for recommending this game to us.

Emma:

And it has become one of our favorite games. We've played it with a bunch of friends. We even played it with our grandmother. So it is really easy to pick up for family game night, or just a quick round between two people like we sometimes do. Anyway, back to the game itself though.

Tilly:

All the character art on the cards is done by Andrew Mosley and Samuel L. Jackson.

Emma:

No. That would have been cool.

Tilly:

And Samuel R Shimoda.

Emma:

I really liked the art, I thought the character design was really cool. I felt like the Royal Court was the cast of bridgerton. Because there's so many different roles and so many different character designs. I also appreciated that it was diverse. There are both men and women in this royal court who are suitors for the princess, it would have been very, very easy to make them all men. Let's get into the setup and rules of this fabulous game.

Tilly:

So the object is to win, obviously, like all game,

Emma:

for sure. Very simple setup as well. There's three major components to the game 21 character cards, 13 favorite tokens and a reference card for each player. Everyone gets

Tilly:

a reference card and one character card from a shuffled deck. And then the top card of that deck is placed also facedown off to the side or into the bag that the game comes in for safekeeping.

Emma:

Why because that card is now out of play. If you only have two players, you also draw three more cards and placed them in the middle of your table surface whatever you're playing on. And they are also out of play. This is just for time sake. The player who wrote a handwritten letter last goes first according to the rulebook, but I've also played it's whoever went on a date last that is much more accessible in these days, who's out here writing handwritten letters. If you have written a handwritten letter, honestly, it is. During your turn, you draw a card, look at the two cards in your hand now

Tilly:

and then you decide which card to play. Each character card has a unique power and a number associated with it. The numbers go from zero to nine.

Emma:

And that's where your reference card comes in. Because it has all this information on it. It has the number assigned to your card. It has the number of that same card that is in the deck and it has the power of each individual card written out for you. Also, the power of each card is written right on the card itself. So it's really easy to follow. Even though there's a lot of powers we're about to go through. You do have that reference card with you at all times. It

Tilly:

really does spoon feed you

Emma:

Yes, it does. It does, which is why it's a great introductory game. Okay, let's talk about the powers

Tilly:

coming in with Zero slot, we've got two spies. Now the spy when you play it, it doesn't actually have an effect on the game itself. But if you're the only person that's played a spy by the end of the round, you get an extra point.

Emma:

That also applies if you happen to play both spies. That just means that nobody else can interfere with you still only get one token. Yeah, so that was spot number zero spot number one, we have guards and there are six of them. So when you play a guard, you can choose a player and guess their card. The only catch is it can't be another guard, you have to choose something else to guess if you're right, they discard and they lose the round. I do want to preface though you cannot lie.

Tilly:

And the number two slot we've got the priest two priests, the power of the priest is that you can see an opponent's hand you get to choose who it is, and nobody else gets to see that card you see it and secret

Emma:

number three, we have two barons. When you play a baron, you choose another player and compare hands with them and secret, whoever has the lowest card number is eliminated. If there's a tie, both of you are safe.

Tilly:

The number four slot is the Handmaiden there's two of these cards. And when you play it, you are immune to all effects of any card until your next turn, it's basically a shield.

Emma:

And number five, we have two princes. When you play a prince, you can choose any player to discard without resolving their effects and draw a new card including yourself, including yourself, if the deck happens to be empty, the player gets that secret card that we put facedown awhile ago.

Tilly:

And number six, you have to Chancellor cards and you get to draw two cards, select one of the three cards that you have in your hand at that time to keep and then the other two, you get to put at the bottom of the deck facedown in any order you choose.

Emma:

Alright, and then moving along, we're moving into the what I want to call the Upper Court where the Royals Yeah, into the Royals where there's only one of each. So number seven, we have one king, and when you play the king, you can trade hands with another player.

Tilly:

And number eight, we have the Countess which doesn't actually have a power, but this is where the bluffing comes in. You can play it at any time. But if you have a prince or a king, you must play it.

Emma:

And then at the very top slot number nine, we have the princess herself. Yes, yes, she can send letters to herself. And if you play or discard the princess at any time, whether that is your choice by accident, you just weren't paying attention, or you are forced to by another player's actions, you lose the round. So with all these cards, you're trying to eliminate all the other players be the last one standing if it comes down to it and there are no more cards in the deck. But there's still more than one player left, whoever has the highest number card in their hand wins that round.

Tilly:

For example, if you have the princess and your card is the number nine and I have the spy the number zero I lose.

Emma:

If I have a priest and you have a guard. That means I would because priestess number two guard is number one, and so forth. Once the round is over the winner or anybody who has successfully played a spy gets a favor token object of the game is to collect as many favorite tokens as you can the one with the most at the very end of the game. Once there are no more left in the bank is the winner. Other things to know Are any cards that have been played, stay face up in the middle of the table, so everyone can see what has been played and devise a strategy using those cards. So now that we've covered the basics, how much do we love this game?

Tilly:

It's pretty dang good.

Emma:

It's pretty good.

Tilly:

It's fast paced, which is nice. It's not one of those games where like risk for example, where you're like think for half an hour to do your thing and like 6000 steps to end your turn. Pick up a card, play a card, do the thing that says it on the card. Easy peasy.

Emma:

Yes, very, very simple. Really good recommendation on Jake and Rachel's part because we already love games like werewolf and coupe. If you're familiar with Jack boxes, faking it is also a lot like that.

Tilly:

If you like to betray the trust of your loved ones, you will enjoy this game.

Emma:

But that being said, because it is so easy to pick up and hold your hand people who are new to this type of game, or people who are bad at lying will still have fun. You don't constantly have to lie that doesn't have to be your strategy as it would be in the other games that I mentioned werewolf in coop, right? We played with our grandmother and she barely knew what was going on. But she could still make it through the rounds. She won a couple Yeah, and eventually she was devising her own strategies within one game like we played a few rounds and she didn't get tokens but within that game, she knew what was going on. And she said this game was pretty cool. Also because the rounds are so fast paced, there's no pressure to keep up your bluff you know what I mean? Yeah, so if you mess up you can just do better on the next round and reset Yeah, you're not stuck with that card and somehow like somebody else knows what you have for the entire game

Tilly:

yeah, there is also the possibility like for example like the few times we've played just me and you say I get a guard and I by chance guess the card that you have GAME OVER GAME OVER Yeah, in the first turn like it's one of those games where it's it's got so many variables but at the same time, it's all the same nine things that are happening all the time. Yeah, I like

Emma:

to I like the variety of it. The other thing I really like is that it is so as well as being a quick game. It's also very portable. It's very small. Everything comes in this really pretty Korean purse. Yeah, little drawstring velvet pouch that can fit in the palm of your hand. Like if you're wearing the right pants, it could fit in your pants pocket, and you could take it with you.

Tilly:

If you have an infant child, you can put that thing in their hand. Maybe we'll carry it.

Emma:

Just so you get Yeah, you can easily take it to coffee shops and play a few rounds with friends. Or you can stuff it in your pocket and take it to a game night. Or you can take it to the cottage really easy. It's not like Monopoly or Catan where the box is really big.

Tilly:

Unpacking. Yeah, hold the board up and then take all the pieces out and get all the money sorted. Right now there's these cards shuffled? Do

Emma:

you feel obligated to play that game? Oh, I brought this huge thing. Now we all have to play a love letter. It's whatever you put it in your pocket. someone's like, hey, I want to play a game, you pull it out, you slap it on the table. Let's go. So I really like that, because I'm all about functionality. Last thing I want to say is even though the setup is modified for the two player game, where you have those three face up cards, I don't feel like there's a huge difference between playing with two people versus playing with three or more people. Yes, definitely the internal setup of your mind has to be different when you're playing with more people because you have more variables to consider. But in terms of length of the game, I don't think it really changes anything, which is really cool. Because usually, when you have two player versions of these kinds of games, it really does diminish the experience. I love playing with just you I think it's great. Yeah, but I also love playing with you and two other friends for

Tilly:

example, like like you said, monopoly. Yeah,

Emma:

I'm not gonna play that with two people. You can but it's vastly different. Yep.

Tilly:

Monopoly with two people is infuriating. I do prefer with multiple people.

Emma:

Yes, the more the merrier with this game because you get into sticky situations, you try to sabotage each other and you're not really supposed to make alliances but secret alliances can be made. If

Tilly:

Yeah, if you if you have a priest or a king or whatever, and you end up seeing another person's hand. You can just like work off of it. I got this. So I'll play this. So you can play that and then you can play this against that person. And then But then

Emma:

that third person comes in and says discard your hand. Yeah. So there's a lot of a lot of very

Tilly:

prints. That is such a that's probably my favorite card to use. Yes, but my least favorite card I have used against that is fair. You'll be setting something up. Yeah, you'll do your turn. You're like okay, yeah, my next turn. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna win the game and then it's like discard you're like Okay, great.

Emma:

Tilly Are there any expansions to this game? Like 50 million there are no expansions to this game. There is no expansions. No expansions, but there are different versions of the game such as Infinity Gauntlet, which is a Marvel version, Adventure Time which is adventure which I believe is not in English, but it does exist there is a version called Munchkin loot letter which is in the world of Munchkin the game fun. That is fine.

Tilly:

You got to get that game.

Emma:

Batman love letter,

Tilly:

man love letter. Also Jabba's palace which is a Star Wars base.

Emma:

And then there is love letter Princess Princess Ever After which is based on a popular comic. There are also many custom versions on places like Etsy, the ones we listed are official versions of the game. I have a question for you. If you could ask. Thank you for your consent. If you could choose any anything to make into love letter. What would you choose? Do you want a Harry Potter love letter? Lord of the Rings Love Letter Lord of the Rings up links will be pretty cool because there's a whole fellowship that you can assign powers to as I said it I was like that's probably the Game of Thrones will be interesting to that'd be cool too.

Tilly:

Yeah, Bran as the priests Yeah, it

Emma:

would be interesting to see what characters they assigned to each role. I don't know if any of the different versions have additional cards or cards with modified powers to suit their characters. For example, does you know in the Marvel version does spider man have a power specific to Spider Man rather than a baron or a priest?

Tilly:

That's a good question.

Emma:

That is a good question.

Tilly:

We should get all the versions and then we can mix them together

Emma:

just one giant game. Yeah, it will be a good science experiment for sure. So if we have three versions we can play with 18 picks up all night Love Letter.

Tilly:

But because it's so fast like it would probably go pretty quick. So that's people just get eliminated here and there. Let's not play with 18 like with anything any game let's just not. Werewolf 18 people

Emma:

that will be sick. That

Tilly:

would be a lot.

Emma:

We're talking about love letter we are. How would we? How would we write this game? Easy versus difficult? How easy is it to pick up? We have talked a little bit about that. We played it with our grandma who is inexperienced with board games that are not monopoly and Scrabble, Scrabble and cribbage and how open to interpretation are the rules. I think the game is very easy to understand once you get into the groove Once you've played a few rounds, by the end of the game, you will know how to play. Everybody can play it.

Tilly:

Yeah. And I mean, like I said, the cards literally have the rules on them. Like, if you can't read the card and follow what it says, when you put it down, you shouldn't be playing cards.

Emma:

That is not to say that, you know, sometimes it does get confusing, because there's so many different ones. Sometimes you overthink things, we are not judging you for that. But it is quite simple. It is very simple. One rule I wish they had disclosed whether or not you can or cannot do this table talk. Can you talk to other players? If you use a priest, and you know, somebody else has a guard per se? Can you tell everybody? Can you lie about what they have? Are you even allowed to talk to other players, other than speaking to say, I'm playing this? Show me your hand, etc?

Tilly:

That's a good point, because that would add some strategy. Exactly.

Emma:

So that is one rule I could not find anything about in the rulebook that I think they should implement because it can vastly change the game. simple or complex. If you're wondering what the difference is between easy versus difficult and simple versus complex. Think of chess, the rules of chess, very simple. But there's a lot of strategy involved. So that being said, Tilly, do you have a strategy for this game?

Tilly:

Well, yes, but also No, with chess, you have all your pieces right away. So you can strategize every move right from the beginning. Whereas love letter, you only get two cards at a time. And you can only play one at a time.

Emma:

And you have to be fairly adaptable because of the randomness of the cards. Yeah.

Tilly:

Which honestly, I really like, if you and I played chess 100 times, we're gonna figure out each other strategies. Yeah, if we played this game 100 times, it would not be the same every

Emma:

time exactly. We're getting into Roe versus random here. But that has a lot to do with what your strategy is. There are micro strategies that I've picked up on saying like sometimes, even though there are one guards can be very helpful. So sometimes it's in your best interest to hold on to a guard if you have it. Because once more cards are revealed, you can play that guard and say, I think you have this because there's only three possibilities.

Tilly:

That's the thing I've noticed the more offensive cards or the lower cards. So like if you keep those cards planning to eliminate your opponent, you run the risk of having someone play a baron and eliminating you. But that's where the luck comes in. That's where the luck comes. Yeah. So is there strategy? Yes, but No, I would say simplex

Emma:

simplex, because sometimes you also start to see that certain card combos are very helpful. Yeah, like if you have a king and a guard, and you switch hands, give your opponent that guard and you get a really high card that puts you in the winter seat.

Tilly:

However, that person person now has a guard.

Emma:

So if there are micro strategies, I want to call them because sometimes you have to abandon them very quickly. Of all the times we have played love letter. Do you recall any time where you just like, took the biggest L?

Tilly:

Yeah. Every time I used the king?

Emma:

I thought of one two for you. I'm sorry. I think you played a priest. Yeah. Told me to show you my hand. I did. And then you played a guard and guest a different card.

Tilly:

No, no. Okay. Okay. I know just I think it was one of those situations where you on your turn, you picked up a handmaiden played it. Ah, so you forgot. So I It slipped. My mind was like, okay, that's strategies over.

Emma:

Meanwhile, I still

Tilly:

I was just like, I moved. I preemptively moved on to my next strategy.

Emma:

Mentally. We're just like, nope, next. Yeah, exactly. I was like, friggin, that's like an example where being adaptable was to your detriment because you moved so far ahead. That's because

Tilly:

that was after like, we'd played it for a few times. So I was like, we were in the groove. We were just like playing do you draw the card, adapt, play, I wanted to keep the other card rather than my garden. I was like, Okay, I'll just pass the guard. And I was like, I'll guess. It's like, wait, what? And then you lost promptly, you get lost in your own head. Hey, that happens without

Emma:

the game steps. Alright, wrote versus random. So we're talking about the game mechanics here. And what makes each playthrough a unique experience. And it really comes down to the cards. They make the game experience different every single time, especially because you have that mystery card that is facedown and it can really mess with your strategy, strategy, strategy strategy. It can really mess with your strategy, especially if you're banking on a bunch of guards that you've just drawn. And you forget about that card, which I have done for sure.

Tilly:

There's no guarantee to winning until you guarantee

Emma:

there's no guarantee toileting until you guarantee the win expert

Tilly:

I said. I said it and I stand by what I meant to say is the guards cannot guarantee you a winner.

Emma:

Yes, that is so true. This game is so good. It's so good. Like it's it's so simple, but it's not Yes, yes. After we're done we're gonna go play it you know you already know Though would we play this game over getting our podcast taken over? I mean, I would call it a tie. Yeah. Because we love the game and we are also very fond of your lovable hosts Jake and Rachel Speaking of which, yesterday Jake and Rachel were on our show taking over our podcast and they were talking about non superhero comics because that's the things that they talk about usually we talked about the things that we talked about sometimes we talked about that but yesterday they talked about it Jason ratio will be back next episode, which is two Tuesdays from now you can also follow them at so bored podcast on Instagram. Furthermore, if you enjoyed our company, our chaotic cousin energy if you found this episode at all coherent and slightly entertaining in any way, check out our podcast where we talk about the things that we talk about. It's called the Geek Squared show that is all letters, no numbers, and it is available on all major podcast streaming services. We release new episodes every Monday and if you would like to stay up to date on our show, you can follow us at the Geek Squared show again all letters on Instagram and we will keep you up to date on new episodes you can get behind the scenes content and just more of us, but until next time, keep gaming keep geeking on our behalf keep aborting and have a great day