Legends of the Three Kingdoms

INTRODUCCÍON

Legends of the Three Kingdoms^[1] (Simplified Chinese: 三国杀, literally Three Kingdoms Kill), or sometimes Sanguosha, LTK, 3KKfor short, is a Chinese card game based on the Three Kingdoms period of China and the semi-fictional novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (ROTK). The rules of LTK are similar to the rules of the Italian card game Bang!. LTK is released by YOKA games (游卡桌游) on January 1, 2008, and till date has spun-off a total of seven official expansion sets, an online version LTK Online, as well as a children’s version LTK Q Version. There are self-created cards by players, but these are mostly unofficial.

LTK initially began with a strong following in China only because the entire game is in Chinese. Sales of LTK totaled 20 million yuan in 2009, and 100 million yuan in 2010.^[2] However the game has begun to reach an international audience after players began translating the game into the English language and posting these translations on blogs and forums. Site visit statistics from one of these blogs showed that readers outside of China come primarily from Singapore, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Malaysia, and New Zealand.^[3]