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WLTM

The acronym WLTM stands for Would Like To Meet. It's a shorthand used in newspaper small ads in what used to be referred to as the 'lonely hearts' section: advertisers briefly describing themselves in their search for partners in a pre-swipe age. The premise then in Ingenium Games' WLTM is that you're posting the first line of a 'lonely hearts' ad and other players are responding by adding the second line.



The game comprises a fat deck of 350 cards, each containing a word or phrase. These vary from mildly suggestive to downright provocative, especially when used in conjunction with others. On a round, all the players are dealt six cards. One player is the advertiser and lays out their choice of cards. Others then use their cards to place out a response. As in similar storytelling/pitching party games like Funemployed (IronWall/Mattel) and Pitchstorm (Skybound Tabletop), players are going for titillation, as the win for the round goes to the player whose response gets the most laughs. The rules suggest that you can play as a 'quickie' or go for an 'all nighter', but in practise you're likely to play sufficient rounds that everyone gets a run at being the advertiser.


Most pitching party games tend to encourage bawdy responses. WLTM is no exception: indeed, it's pretty much entirely designed around the raucous and risqué. The WLTM strap line that it's a 'grown up game for very immature people' is an accurate summary. With the right crowd, you can have a lot of fun, especially when playing after a few drinks, but this is probably not a game to break out to play with the family over Christmas. It has 18+ on the box. That's not an indication of the number of players, it's a warning that WLTM is NSFW (Not Safe For Work).



Our problem in playing WLTM is that the cards aren't differentiated in any way between those that give a noun ('Headmaster', 'Bigamist', 'Rear Admiral' etc), those that give an adjective ('experienced', 'uninhibited', 'unshaven' etc) and those that add a descriptive phrase ('with low self-esteem', 'who's on the rebound', 'entering witness protection programme' etc). If you happen to be dealt a hand of all nouns, there's not much you can do with it. It would've been much better if the deck were divided into card types with different backs and players were each dealt two of each. You can of course pre-sort the deck to achieve this but it adds tedious prep, and to pre-sort immediately before you play is bound to dampen the mood.


You need at least three players for WLTM, or, as the single-entendre rules put it, a 'threesome'. There's no set upper limit but we'd estimate that the optimal number is 6-8. And from our plays at Board's Eye View, we'd recommend letting players reveal their own responses rather than have the advertiser reveal them all.



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