Game Review: LovePigs

By Steve Bennett
October 30, 2007

Publisher: Post Scriptum
Designer: Angelo Porazzi
Players: 4-14
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 15-30 minutes
Rules Language: Italian / English

The Short Review
Without knowing anything about the game, I was immediately predisposed to liking it just because it’s called LovePigs. I’m sure that says more about me and my porcine proclivities than it does about the game. So be it. Fortunately, LovePigs didn’t let me down. It’s not a great game, but it’s a good game in the right situations, and we had a lot of fun with it.

The Contents
LovePigs consists of a deck of 55 cards in a tuckbox. The cards are coated and of good quality. I think they’ll stand up to repeated plays. The cards are colorful; the art is cartoonish (and created by Signor Porazzi.) I’m not a fan of the style, but it telegraphs instantly that this is a light game. 

The Object of the Game
LovePigs is a game played with teams of partners. The object is to recognize your LovePig (partner) through a series of tests. The winner is determined when both partners achieve the agreed upon number of points. If you’re playing to five, it doesn’t matter if one of you is at seven and the other three. You both have to get to five. It’s kind of a Knizia-like winning condition, reminiscent of the balance necessary to win Samurai.

Game Play
The first player (or “annulled” player) draws a character card. There are 43 of these, each depicting a cutely named pig such as Beerpig or Marypoppig. Pignic, to give an example, shows a pig lying on a picnic blanket. Next to the blanket are a picnic basket, a thermos, and what looks like a bowl of food. A butterfly is fluttering nearby. The pig is wearing a cap and appears to be blowing some sort of snot bubble out of its nose. Perhaps that’s Italian shorthand for snoring. To me it looks like a snot bubble.

The starting player draws inspiration from this card and devises a question to ask such as, “What is my favorite picnic food?” or “What beverage am I likeliest to put in a thermos?” At this point the start player annuls himself by covering his eyes and ears as all the other players say or write their answers. (The game gives you the option to write or say your answer, but since the answers need to be regurgitated later, writing makes more sense to me.)

A player other than the annulled player’s LovePig reads out the answers. If the annulled player correctly identifies the answer from his LovePig, he wins the card, which counts as one point. If instead he identifies an answer from another player, the card goes to that player. Play moves to the left and continues in this fashion until one team wins.

Competing Tensions
The fun in LovePigs comes from three competing tensions. If you are the “annuller,” you are trying to frame a question so that your partner can take the answer to the hole and dunk it, to put it in basketball parlance. If you are the annuller’s LovePig (partner), you are trying to create an answer that is clearly yours and yours alone. If you’re one of the other players, you’re trying to create an answer that will confuse the annuller into thinking you are his LovePig. Admit it: Haven’t you always wanted to be a LovePig to an annuller?

Let me give you a couple of examples of how this worked in a couple of the games I played with my family. My daughter, who was born with nary a strategic bone in her body, drew the WaterPig card and asked, “What is your favorite water sport?” Her brother was her partner or LovePig, so I needed to write an answer that sounded like it might have come from him. I wrote, “High school swimming so I can watch ______.” The blank was the name of a neighborhood girl whose identity I’m compelled to protect. I thought by relating it to high school, I had a good shot of being selected. Her brother the LovePig trumped me by writing, “Pitching in the rain.” Baseball is king at our house, and my son is a good pitcher. She chose his answer and earned the point for herself.

In another game, I was paired with my son. He drew MusicPig, and he asked a question that he thought only I would know: “What was the best band to emerge from Manchester in the mid-90’s?” I was less certain that I’d be the only one who could answer that, so I had to find a way to set my response apart. My daughter answered, “Oasis.” I one-upped her with “Oasis, not Blur.” My son knew immediately which response was mine.

There can be some wild moments when you think you’ve done enough only to find you’ve been outfoxed by someone else.

The Advanced Game
When you’re comfortable enough with the game as I’ve described it above, you can add the 12 Pigs cards. The cards depict two pigs in some action. “Hand Cheek” means the annulled player is blindfolded and has to identify his LovePig by touching his hand to each player’s cheek. The combinations are finger-nose, hand-leg, belly-belly, hand-arm, hand-belly, hand-finger, bum-bum, and nose-nose. In each case the annulled player’s body part is listed first. Additionally there are three acoustic cards where the annuller has to identify you according to your ability to scream like an alien, a bird, or a pig.

We didn’t enjoy these cards as much because with several of them it’s too easy to identify your LovePig. In the right crowd they probably add something, but I found they upset the balance of the game.

Furthermore, the Pigs cards can suggest a level of familiarity that simply is not appropriate for the group. When I played it with eight players, several of whom only knew the other players in passing, the belly-belly card caused a moment of discomfort until we decided to scrap it and draw another card. It might not be a problem for the six cast members of Friends, but I’m sure it would be an issue in a lot of groups. Of course, you always have the option of leaving the 12 Pigs cards in the box.

Constraints of the Rabble
In a game where you formulate the questions, it’s possible to create questions that go against the spirit of the game and effectively kill the competition. LovePigs has a way of dealing with this. If another player boos the question, then everyone votes to determine whether the question should be allowed. If it’s voted down, another card is drawn and another question asked. While the rules don’t explicitly state it, we assumed the same applies to answers.

My son answered one question with, “This is Will’s answer. If you want to win, you’ll pick it.” It kind of defeats the point of the game. We disallowed it and made him write another.

Comparisons
When reading the rules, I immediately thought of Attribute, a game I reviewed previously on BGN. In LovePigs, you look at a card and pick a question that you think will give you a leg up on the competition; in Attribute you look at a card and choose a topic that will give you a leg up on the competition.

I also saw some of Cranium Whoonu (also reviewed on this site) in the game, in that it’s built around how well you know the other players. My daughter, who loves Whoonu, immediately picked up on this similarity.

The fact that you’re writing out creative responses and trying to sound as if you are one of the other players is reminscent of Things… (yet another game reviewed on this site).

LovePigs doesn’t suffer from these comparisions. It’s not as good as Things…, but it certainly holds its own when compared to the other two.

Failings
More than most games, the success of LovePigs depends on the people playing it. I think it’s very difficult to play it well and enjoy it if you know next to nothing about your partner. And even if you do know your partner, if another couple has precise knowledge about each other, they can ask questions that aren’t much fun for everyone else.

Final Thoughts
LovePigs is a game that can bog down if you’re not asking the right questions or if you’re playing with a group that is not evenly matched in its creative talents. You have to approach the game in the right mood and with the right people. That criticism, however, can be leveled at any creative game. So if you try LovePigs and it doesn’t click for you, try it again with a different group or when you’re in a different mood.

At my house LovePigs works for my family of four, regardless of how we divide into pairs. When we’ve tried it with more diverse groups, it’s been a little flat.

I give it a 6 out of 10 for play with my family. If I were to base my rating on plays outside my family, the score would go down. That said, if you think LovePigs sounds interesting and you have the right group to play it with, you’ll probably enjoy it and consider it money well-spent.

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