How to play — Love & Couples

01 of 9
The season
Twenty-one days.
One card each day, for three weeks. Five suits — Assistance, Gifts, Time, Touch and Words — and three acts that change what help you are allowed. Day twenty-one is the finale, and it is the only day scored out of five.
Deal the season
Act I is days one to seven, Act II eight to fourteen, Act III fifteen to twenty.
02 of 9
Before day one
You draft the days together.
Twenty days, four of each suit, in whatever order the two of you like. You will know what is coming. You will not know what your partner is going to make of it.
Day 1
Put a card on a day
In a blind season you each draft your own twenty instead, and you learn which suit they were playing only once the day resolves.
03 of 9
Before day one
Then you each seal three things.
A prize you want if you win. A penalty you will take if you lose. And a blind ranking of the five suits, in the order you believe your partner wants them.
L
Seal it
None of it is readable until day twenty-one — not by them, and not by any screen in this app.
04 of 9
Every day
The card turns over at your hour.
You agree the hour once and it is the same every day. Nobody sees tomorrow early, and neither of you can turn it over sooner.
·
Turn it over
The day runs until that same hour the next day.
05 of 9
Every day
You do it. Separately.
No discussing it, no negotiating, no checking whether it landed. What you make of the card is what they get to judge — and most of this happens with the phone face down.
Youface downThem
Nothing to press. That is the point.
Life happens: a day stays open for two hours after it closes, and a missed one is covered by a Skip automatically. You have three. Run out and the season ends early.
06 of 9
When the day closes
First, you guess their score.
Privately, before you give yours, and they never see it. Guess it exactly and you earn a point of Insight — the gap between your guess and their number is the distance between what you meant and what they received.
What will they give you?
They never see this
Guess what they gave you
Three Insight buys a Read on what they most want. Asking for a hint is free in Act I and costs two Insight in Act II; in Act III there is no asking. A day you were told about earns no Insight.
07 of 9
When the day closes
Then you score them.
One, two or three. A number on its own is a verdict, so it comes with a line about what actually landed — three words at least — or fifteen seconds of your voice, sent with the day.
What they did, and what it meant.
Give them a score
Once you lock it, it is final. There is no appeal.
08 of 9
When the day closes
Nothing opens until you both lock.
Then it all opens at once: what you gave, what you got, what each of you guessed, and what they wrote. Nobody gets to see a number and then decide what to answer with.
YouThem
You gave3You got3
Lock it in
09 of 9
What you are playing for
Tokens, and the line.
Four Switches, three Skips and one Double Down. Skip and Switch unlock on day four, Double Down on day eight. A Switch changes the suit and costs you a point; a Double Down turns a three into six and a one into nothing.
3→6
43 clears the season and 63 makes you a Master Partner, out of 68.
Spend a Double Down
Seven straight days graded a three earns a Favour, and fourteen earns the Wild instead of a second one. There is a line to clear by day twenty-one: under it you are a Slipping Partner, over it a Wonderful Partner, and higher again a Master Partner. Past what a perfect season reaches with the Double Down unspent is Master Partner+ — and the winner only collects a prize if they cleared the line.

Nine things, and then you can play.

Twenty-one days.

You draft the days together.

Then you each seal three things.

The card turns over at your hour.

You do it. Separately.

First, you guess their score.

Then you score them.

Nothing opens until you both lock.

Tokens, and the line.

That is the whole of it.