Tag Archives: Love Letter

New Game Weekend: Revolution! and Carcassonne

ITD

This past Saturday was International Tabletop Day, a day where tens-of-thousands of people around the world crowd around tables in dining rooms, basements, clubs and hobby shops to do what many of us do year-round — play games. My youngest son and I spent the afternoon at Brooklyn Game Lab, a recent entry into the growing list of New York City venues dedicated to unplugging and playing tabletop games with friends and strangers alike. The scene in Brooklyn was like that played-out worldwide with a packed house of experienced gamers and newcomers joining together, rolling dice, racking up points, playing cards, placing tokens and role-playing through a massive variety of games. At Brooklyn Game Lab, players faced off with a variety of games like Betrayal at House on the Hill, Love Letter, The Resistance: Avalon, Tokaido and even a few games of Chess. My son and I had a go at two games which were new to us — Revolution! and Carcassonne.

rev picIn Revolution! from the decades-old Steve Jackson Games  players vie for power in a town through a secretive combination of blackmail, strong-armed force and out-and-out bribery. With four new players at the table, Revolution! was a quick learn and exciting fast play in just under an hour’s time.

securedownload-1A player’s secret bidding card in Revolution with Gold, Blackmail and Force tokens

Revolution! has an interesting secret bidding mechanic where players simultaneously bid their Force, Blackmail and Gold tokens on a dozen citizens of the board’s town such as the General, Priest, Printer, Mercenary or Spy. Once bids are placed, players remove their screens to reveal their bids. Bids to influence the same character are resolved through a simple Force beats Blackmail, Blackmail beat Gold and ties result in no effect for the round. Once a player wins influence over a character, the effects dealt out through additional earned Force, Blackmail and Gold tokens, Support points or placement of Influence markers in one of the town’s areas such as the Tavern, Town Hall, Market or Harbor.

securedownloadOur game of Revolution! from Steve Jackson Games at Brooklyn Game Lab

The game continues with subsequent rounds of bidding which progress into evolving strategies and agendas as the town’s areas fill up with player Influence. As the board is filled, players in Revolution! shift in their need for Force, Blackmail and Gold tokens, seeking to not only control the board but shift and undermine their opponent’s already-placed pieces. Controlling an area of the town brings additional Support points when the game ends, and the player with the most points on the outer scoring track wins.

carcassonneFor our second game of the day, we got into the now-classic Carcassonne from 2000. Distributed by Z-Man Games in the United States, Carcassonne is a tile-placement game where players build-out and a kingdom dotted with cities, roads and monasteries. Carcassonne is a quick learn, and the random tile choice at the beginning of each player’s turn creates choices in matching the tile to the multiple potential fits on the table.

In placing a tile, a player also makes a choice in placing a meeple on the board and in doing so, placing a bet on potential points. In placing the first tile of a city, a player may place one of their colored meeple pieces with the hope of closing off the city with additional tile plays which score points on the number of subsequently connected city pieces at a two points apiece. A monastery scores nine points when the eight surrounding tiles are placed, and roads are scored at a tile each once a route is closed between two endpoints. Victory points are tracked on a scorecard next to the growing kingdom of Carcassonne, and each tile played reduces the chances from the finite number of potential tiles in the draw pile. Playing against three experienced players in my first game,  I was able to score highest on some chancy bets and lucky tile draws.

International Tabletop Day is 24 hours of celebration of games, chanced strategies played out and opportunities to try something new. At the Brooklyn Game Lab this past weekend I found myself in my element surrounded by passionate gamers questing for victory and fun and more than a few hours of play. Games focus on this one day per year, but for a lot of my fellow gamers, they play out week after week until next turn  rolls around on the calendar.

New Game Weekend: Love Letter

Heading into a weekend visit to Metropolitan Wargamers, I often don’t know what kind of game I’m going to be jumping into. It could be a re-fighting of a World War II D-Day scenario with hundreds of finely-painted miniatures. It might be a gory zombie apocalypse boardgame. Maybe it’s a sci-fi deck-building card game. Or, it could be an abstract Euro-style game where great world civilizations are built over the course of a couple hours of play.

This past Saturday night it was Love Letter. Released in 2012 in Japan and quickly moving into multiple international versions, Love Letter is a seemingly unlikely game for a group of hardcore gamers crowded around a basement table. The game is comprised of just 16 playing cards, 4 reference cards and 13 tiny red square cubes — “tokens of affection.” Everything comes in a crimson crushed velvet drawstring bag with “Love Letter” embroidered in flowery yellow script. The simplicity of the game’s packaging, design and minimal components hides a pretty compelling strategy card game which even the most battle-hardened gamers will find engaging in just under a half-hour’s play.

In Love Letter, player’s vie for the affection of Princess Annette of the imaginary kingdom of Tempest. Players are dealt cards with values of 1 to 9, each depicting a courtly character with a specific ability. In turn, each player then draws and plays one card. Guards (value 1) allow you to guess a card in another player’s hand. The Baron (value 3) has two players compare hands with the lowest hand eliminated from the round. The Prince (value 5) forces a player to discard their hand and draw a new card. The remaining six cards reveal different types of actions, and some cards are plentiful while others are unique. After a round of play, the last player holding a card or the player with highest-valued card wins a cube and a new round is dealt. The first player to score four cubes — “tokens of affection” — over a number of rounds of play wins the hand of Princess Annette.

The trick of the game is to attempt to follow which cards are in the hands of other players and still in the draw pile. Love Letter is thus a game of memorization, strategy and deceit. The most powerful cards, while best at the end of a round may make a player a target early in the round. Playing cards may reveal information to you, but also allow your opponents to possibly infer who is holding what cards. Players may gang up on a leading player to force them from a round, leading to shifting alliances from hand to hand.

Despite its courtly conceit, Love Letter can turn into a bit of a raucous and cut-throat game, as ours did among four of us Saturday night. The game would be perfect to keep tucked in the bottom of your bag to pull out among a group of friends at a bar or around the table during dessert. Given that entire ancient battles have been fought and historic treaties struck over the union of two fated lovers, Love Letter provides a quick and challenging chance to play out the ultimate game of royal affection taken to extremes.