‘Love Letters’ Overcomes Shyness With Letter Puzzles

Love Letters finds you circling letters to help someone build up the courage to start speaking to the girl they like.

You see her at times. Sometimes she’s reading in the park. Another time, she’s in a museum. Sitting across from you in class. When you catch sight of that face and her long white hair, though, you lose your voice and your thoughts become a jumble. If you really, really concentrate, though, you can make the words come out so you can talk to her. At least, that will be your job as the player as you try to help your character say the things they need to.

So, how do you help this person say increasingly complex things to their crush? You have to draw a circle around letters in a big pile on the left side of the screen. If you draw a circle around some of the letters you need, they will get filled in to the words you want to say. The challenge comes from circling as many letters as you can with a limited amount of line-drawing capability. A meter shows you how much line you can draw with each “pencil” and you have a limited number of pencils you can use each round. You have to circle enough letters to fill in your phrase, so circling a few at a time is key. It’s not particularly challenging across this charming puzzle game, but it did have me planning my route after a few rounds.

Love Letters is a cute take on the way your thoughts can get all mixed up when you really like someone. Although this person can get their head in order relatively easily when they want to, so I’m a bit jealous of them. I WISH I just had to pick a few letters when someone I like is around.

Love Letters is available now (for free) on itch.io.

About The Author

Joel Couture

Joel has been covering indie games for various sites including IndieGames.com, Siliconera, Gamasutra, Warp Door, CG Magazine, and more over the past seven years, and has written book-length studies on Undertale and P.T.. Joel is constantly on the lookout for digital experiences that push the boundaries of what games can be, and seeks to delve into the creative process, meanings, and emotion labor that goes into the work of artists worldwide.