Double Up on Colt Express, Travel with Precognition, and Build 1001 Islands

At SPIEL '21, French publisher Ludonaute showed off a new expansion in the works for designer Christophe Raimbault's 2015 Spiel des Jahres-winning game Colt Express.

Here's an overview of Colt Express: 2 Trains & 1 Mission, with this expansion that's due out in 2022 being for 3-9 players:

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Players now work together as teams to try to become the wealthiest bandits in the Wild West, and what's better than a second train containing precious documents to spice up the adventure? As soon as they hear this, our famous bandits do not hesitate for a second, jumping from train to train to try to steal these documents on top of everything else up for grabs — but the shotguns roam wild and the Gatling on the roof does not bode well. On top of everything else, bandits have to be back on the starting train at the end of the last round if they want a chance to win.

Board Game: Colt Express: Couriers & Armored Train

Trains running side by side (Image: Beth Heile)

This expansion introduces a new 3D train with special cars, two new bandits (Misty and the Twinz, each with new powers), a double team mode with the possibility of betraying your team or not, and an AI Bandit, Il Professore, to allow you to play with an odd number of players and a new action card to nudge a bandit from your team.

Beth Heile, BGG's production manager, visited the Ludonaute booth during SPIEL '21, and she notes that aside from being able to betray your parter, the expansion features bullets you can pick up, documents that give you money for finding the opposing team, luggage that's points on its own, and a coal car that includes one gold-filled lump of coal amongst the (relatively worthless) lumps of actual coal.

Don't rest in front of the Gatling...

• Ahead of this release, Ludonaute will package the Colt Express base game and the two larger expansions — Horses & Stagecoach, and Marshal & Prisoners — into Colt Express: BIG BOX, with this item also including a new bandit — Silk — that will be available later from the publisher's web shop.

• Another title in the works from Ludonaute is Precognition, a game in which you and your fellow mutants travel in ships down a river, rescuing humans to help you. Different parts of the ship unlock different abilities for the mutants, e.g., parking a mutant in the medbay allows you to heal humans.

• Also, Ludonaute is revamping The Little Prince: Make Me a Planet from Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala for release as 1001 Islands in the first half of 2022.

As the publisher explained to Beth, they no longer have the license to the book IP, but the game remains popular, so they're tightening the rules involving scoring and getting new art from Marie Cardouat for this new setting that will put the game on the market again.

Here is a sampling of Ludonaute's testing regimen from mid-2021:

☀️[EN] Last week office, testing 1001 Islands: a 2022 game of @BDMontagnes and @Toinito. We love this kind of working day.
☀️[FR] Au "bureau" la semaine dernière, en train de tester 1001 îles, un jeu de @BDMontagnes et @Toinito qui sortira en 2022. On adore ce genre de journée ! pic.twitter.com/Sohb9l00RG
— Ludonaute (@ludonaute) July 12, 2021