Arkham Horror: Lovecraft Letter

• Designer: Seiji Kanai
• Publisher: Z-man
• Players: 2-6
• Age: 14+
• Time: 15-30 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3Ysxjje
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Step into the eerie town of Arkham with Arkham Horror: Lovecraft Letter, a chilling twist on the classic deduction card game. Delve into the madness of the Lovecraftian universe as you face eldritch horrors and uncover allies tainted with madness in this gripping battle of wits. Can you maintain your sanity and outwit Cthulhu, or will you succumb to the creeping darkness that lurks within?

Arkham Horror: Lovecraft Letter is a game of push-your-luck, deduction, and risk for 2-6 players that uses the award-winning Love Letter system. Arkham Horror: Lovecraft Letter is played over a series of rounds. Each round, you collect clues to investigate an eldritch mystery while trying to hold onto your sanity—or embracing the horror  The card in your hand represents the clue you’re currently investigating. Each turn, you draw 1 new card, then play 1 of your 2 cards. Playing certain cards will drive you Insane, which gives you access to powerful Insane effects on cards you play but also forces you to make a Sanity check each turn to see if you break down completely.  This is an updated version of the popular Lovecraft Letter with Gameplay and visuals that are reimagined for Arkham Horror.

There are 27 cards in the deck for Lovecraftian Letter – a significant increase from the base game of Love Letter.  As with the base version, one card is discarded unseen before the round starts and then each player gets one card as their starting hand.

Turns follow the same basic pattern; the active player draws a card and then must play one of the two cards in their hand.  Each card in the game has at least one special ability printed on it which is enacted when the card is played.

The game ends when there is only one player left in the round; that player gains a victory point marker.  The game also ends when the deck is empty, at which point, the player(s) with the highest numbered card in their hand gain a victory point marker.  When you gain a VP marker, you flip it to the side that matches your current state of mind.

Wait a minute- what am I talking about?!  So, the one big change here is that ten of the 27 cards are Other World cards.  They have a darker background to set them apart from the “regular” cards.  Each of these Other World cards have two effects – a light colored “Sane” effect and a dark colored “Insane” effect.  The Insane effect  tends to be more powerful than the “Sane” effect.

A player is considered insane once they have at least one Other World card in their play area.  Players who are insane can choose either effect of an Other World card when they play one.  Once you have turned Insane, you remain in that state for the remainder of the round.

 However, being Insane comes with risks. Risks of elimination.  At the start of every turn, an Insane player must make a Sanity Check by flipping over a number of cards from the deck equal to the number of Other World cards in their play area.  If they reveal another Other World card from the deck in this way, they are immediately eliminated from the round.

That penalty sounds pretty drastic!  However, some of the Insane powers are quite strong.  For instance, the 3-Deep One allows you to simply choose any Sane player and eliminate them from the round.  The 8-Chthlhu card lets you win the entire game immediately (NOT just this round!) if you play it when you have two or more Other World cards already in your area!

If the game is not won immediately as noted above, a player wins when they have 2 Sane Vp tokens OR 3 Insane VP tokens.

This version of the game has even wilder swings of fortune than the base game, and it is clearly geared to people who are already inclined to the Arkham Horror IP.  (I am not one of those people, and for that reason alone, this is not one of my favorite Love Letter variants).

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it.
• Neutral.  Dale Y
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3Ysxjje