I am very proud to make True Love Match available for free download.
True Love Match is the game of romance and reality TV. You’ll need six people, a couple of rooms, and a few hours. It might mess you up a little.
Download True Love Match (PDF, 210K)
I’ve released the full text into Creative Commons (CC-BY 3.0), so it’s free to download and share and do anything you like with, as long as my name stays attached somewhere.
True Love Match originated in my sheer fury at the cruelty of The Bachelor as an entertainment format, and a sudden insight that I could mash together Emily Care Boss’s Breaking the Ice and Gregor Hutton’s Best Friends into a Bachelor game. The resulting game was offered at Wellington, New Zealand’s tabletop and live-action gaming convention Kapcon in 2014, and it was an intense experience for everyone.
“Nobody was really laughing any more. It had become intensely serious.” – Anna Klein’s write-up of the game.
“…suffice to say that we had a 15 minute debrief afterwards and it was severely needed.” – Jenni Sands’s account.
I also wrote about that game from my perspective here.
This version of the game has some significant differences to that early version. The changes have not been playtested. If you try this game, please let me know how it goes in the comments below.
UPDATE: In December 2018 the third episode of the Hearts & Dice podcast discussed True Love Match in some detail in the context of safety in games and things going awry. It’s an excellent listen, and under 20 minutes so easy to fit into your life!
And it also sparked some tweets on the subject from me.