At SPIEL '21, IELLO Teases Get on Board, Distant Suns, Wagon Infernal, and King of...

At SPIEL '21, BGG product manager Beth Heile met with publishers to explore possible future GeekUp bit sets, pick up games for use in the library during BGG.CON, and...become W. Eric Martin.

This latter bit was not something she intended, but she told me that sometimes when she met with publishers, "they treated me like I was you" and talked about future game releases. Aside from marveling at the number of pronouns featured in that short phrase, I am thankful that Beth got a sneak peek at games on my account because now I can talk about them in this space.

Today I'll focus on titles coming from French publisher IELLO and its children's brand LOKI, and I have a lot to cover, albeit often with little to go on. The prime example of this is the teasing announcement of the third title in the "King of..." line from designer Richard Garfield following King of Tokyo and King of New York.

Image in IELLO's 2021 catalog

Diorama in the press room

So...King of the Sea? King of Atlantis? King of Crab? Any guesses on your end? This title won't be released until SPIEL '22, so we have a lot of time to speculate on such things. Please note that for almost everything depicted, the designs in question are not final and might change prior to release.

Speaking of King of Tokyo, the King of Tokyo: Monster Box is due out before the end of 2021, with this set featuring ten monsters (with Baby Gigazaur appearing in this set for the first time), the Power Up! and Halloween expansions, Evolution cards for (I believe) all ten monsters, a dice tray, and power cards previously released as promo items.

IELLO has stated that Baby Gigazaur and its power cards will be available separately at some point, with King of Tokyo: Monster Box meant to serve as introductory item for newcomers that gives them a lot of material all at once.

I've already written about Get on Board: New York & London, the new version of Saashi's 2018 title Let's Make a Bus Route, but now I can show off the look of all the components in this February 2022 release.

Board Game: Get on Board: New York & London

I know nothing about The Animals of Baker Street other than what's shown here, although one of the co-designers is Dave Neale, who has created multiple game designs about Sherlock Holmes and deduction more generally. The other co-designer, Clémentine Beauvais, appears to be new to games, but (if I have located the proper person) is an accomplished author of books for children and young adults.

Slightly more is known about Wagon Infernal from Thomas Brissot, with this being a co-operative game for 2-5 players in which to win you must play through the entire deck of cards in less than seven minutes.

You and your fellow players are trapped on a handcar that you must keep moving to escape from the danger behind you. You will play cards in front of the handcar to extend the track, and as long as the symbols match, you're safe; when they don't match, cards behind the handcar blow up — and if the inferno catches up to you and blows you off track, you die.

Little Town, IELLO's version of Little Town Builders from designers Shun and Aya Taguchi will receive an expansion. Each worker receives two blank cards (visible at the bottom of the image below), and if you upgrade either of those cards, you get that bonus power when you place the worker. Upgrades get more and more powerful, but also more and more expensive.

Break the Cube is a standalone successor to Ryohei Kurahashi's Break the Code, which is IELLO's version of his game TAGIRON.

Distant Suns is a "choose and write" game from designers Gary Kim and Yeon-Min Jung in which you're trying to improve your equipment, map the galaxy, locate black holes, contact extraterrestrials, and reach the edges of space (i.e., your personal score sheet) to score extra points as a famous space explorer.

In Last Message from designers Juhwa Lee and Giung Kim, one person tries to help others identify the suspect of a crime, while a second person attempts to thwart that communication. More details in this BGG News post.

For the titles from LOKI, I often have a picture with no other info for now. Beth is forwarding the catalog that she picked up at SPIEL '21, but for the moment pictures with bare bones info will have to do, as with Cosmic Race from Alexandre Emerit and Théo Rivière.

Or Tentacolor from Davide Panizza.

Or the press-your-luck, co-operative game Carla Caramel from Sara Zarian.

Or Farm & Furious from Luc Rémond.

Or Hâpy Families from Olivier Cipière and Forgenext.

Okay, we have a lot of unknowns in everything listed above, but now you have a brief taste of what was to be found in IELLO's media showroom at SPIEL '21. Once again, thanks to Beth Heile for the pics, and ideally I'll be on hand myself for SPIEL '22...