Lovecraft Letter Review – Even Our Sweet Lord and Saviour Cthulhu Can’t Save This Clunky Sequel

We know this blog isn’t Marvel, because I’m flat broke, and it doesn’t take a year to get a sequel. A couple of weeks ago I reviewed the excellent small box game Love Letter. Now I’m back, and ready to review the latest addition to the LLBGU (Love Letter Board Game Universe) Lovecraft Letter.

Although there are many flavours of the original game, such as Love Letter: The Hobbit – The Battle of Five Armies, and Love Letter: Infinity Gauntlet. The only version that has seen Seiji Kanai return to the design is Lovecraft Letter.

So let’s take a look at this new, creepier version of Love Letter to see how it plays, what components have been added, and whether or not it’s better than the original.

Overview

For the most part, Lovecraft Letter plays the same as the original game, and you can find an in-depth how-to-play in the original review.

However, Lovecraft Letter adds nine new insane cards to the original sixteen cards found in Love Letter. These insane cards are numbered one to nine, and now have two different abilities on them: a sane ability, and a more powerful insane ability.

These cards are treated the same as the other cards, except for a couple of differences:

• If a player discards an insane card, they become insane for the rest of the round.
• Meanwhile, if a player is insane, and discards an insane card, then – and only then – they can use the insane ability on the card.
• Finally, if you’re insane at the start of your turn, then you must perform an insanity check. Draw cards from the deck equal to the number of insane cards in your discard. If any of these are insane cards, then you’re knocked out of the round.

Otherwise, Lovecraft Letter plays exactly the same as the original game you know and love. With one other exception. Now when you win the round, you either gain a sane token, or an insane token, based on your mental status. Winning the game outright requires you to win two sane or three insane tokens. Alternatively, you can also win the game, and destroy humanity, by having discarded two insane cards, and then playing our sweet lord and saviour Cthulhu.

Solving past mistakes

Lovecraft Letter is a fascinating board game to dissect because there’s a direct comparison to the original game. This allows us to see how the game tried to fix problems with the original

For example, in the Premium version of Love Letter, there were too many cards when playing with more than four players. Bogging down the speed of play, and removing a lot of the fun of the four-player game.

This is solved in Lovecraft Letter by removing seven cards, thereby having a deck of only twenty-five cards. Additionally, the insane mechanic helps the game move quicker at higher player counts by providing another avenue for eliminating players.

Further, by having insane players having to draw and discard cards. They cycle through the deck faster than the Premium version. This means the end game arrives a lot sooner than it would otherwise.

The insanity checks and insane cards are excellent additions and provide an extra dimension – literally – to Love Letter.

While in the original you’re often wondering which cards to keep early, and which cards to keep late. Insane cards take this concept to the next level. As it’s the same decision, now with greater risks, and greater rewards.

Going insane early gives you the best chance to get and use another insane card, but then makes it more likely you’ll be knocked out. However, the longer the game goes the less worthwhile it is to go insane. Remembering that it takes three insane tokens to win the game.

This pushes the players to gamble early or not at all. However if HP Lovecraft taught us anything, it’s that it is easier said than done.

Insane cards are maybe a little TOO crazy

Not everything is peachy about this new insane mechanic. For one, it became hard to tell who was insane or not, it’s not as though they suddenly changed into a straight jacket or started speaking in tongues.

Instead, you figure out who’s insane by digging through discard piles. But when someone’s sitting out of arms reach – that makes digging a lot harder. Then because you play round after round, it’s hard to remember who is insane this round as opposed to the last.

This unfortunately creates stoppages where everyone needs to figure out who’s sane or not. Something not found in the original Love Letter, and as a huge player of the original, I found it frustrating to go from the smooth playing original to the stop-start nature of Lovecraft Letter.

Then there’s the issue of balance. These insane cards are stronger than any of the previous cards, and that’s OK – you’re taking a risk to get them. However, there are a couple of cards that go against the interactiveness of the rest of the cards.

For instance, The Hound of Tindalos allows you to point at someone and remove them from the round. There’s no counterplay to that, so it feels unfair. There are a couple of other cards that include this new design philosophy but they also feel out of place.

Then the cards are difficult themselves. The names are long and hard to remember, and the artwork doesn’t provide enough contrast between sane and insane cards. This goes against one of the core strengths of the base game; accessibility.

So where does that leave us?

Lovecraft Letter improves upon the five and above player count game found in Love Letter Premium Edition. It retains that snappy gameplay from the original game that I enjoy, without getting bogged down by a lot of players taking their turns. This largely comes from the additional risk within the game, as players get eliminated a lot quicker in this version of Love Letter.

Yet, in the three and four-player ranges, Lovecraft Letter falls short. The risk and chance-taking, which makes the game feel so lively with more players, removes a lot of the strategy and deduction that made the original so great. The clever and smart play has been replaced by greed and bravado, and while the latter has its place, I prefer the former.

Additionally, Lovecraft Letter comes with a premium price tag. While the components are worth the extra money, it is a riskier purchase. When compared to the cheap bag version of Love Letter.

Although, being risky is very on-brand for the game.