Love Letter arrives in the mail

Love Letter: A good thing in
a small package

Kathy recently placed an order with Amazon that, by itself, would not have qualified for free super saver shipping.  So she asked if there was anything I'd like to add to the order.  I went straight to my boardgamegeek wishlist and picked out Love Letter (designer Seiji Kanai, artists Andrew Hepworth and Jeffrey Himmelman, publisher Alderac Entertainment Group). I'd heard some very interesting hype about this little 16-card microgame.  Not every review was positive, but many were enthusiastic or at least intriguing.  I am most fascinated by the concept of a game of so few components that carries so much player interaction, logic, and second-guessing.  Coup falls into this category and, in some respects, Citadels.

Love Letter's first English edition had sold out fairly quickly, but the second printing had been shipped to the United States just a couple of months ago, so I was thankful that the game was available.  My copy arrived today, and I was immediately struck by the unusual packaging.  I was never able to find it at Game Parlor, my FLGS, even though they carry the other three games in the AEG Tempest series.  Now I realize that they might have had it all along and I could simply have overlooked it.  Love Letter comes in a clamshell pack that contains a relatively small scarlet velvet bag with its name embroidered in gold script.  The bag contains a pack of 16 cards plus four reference cards, a small rulebook, and a set of red wooden cubes that serve as "tokens of affection" for keeping score.

I look forward to trying this game out with Kathy this weekend.