The game includes 30 animal tiles, with six different types of animals, each valued 1-5. To set up the game, randomly create a 5x6 grid of animal tiles. Each player secretly chooses one of the six animal character tiles to see which animal they want to save.
On a turn, a player chooses any tile or stack of tiles and moves the tile/stack orthogonally onto an adjacent tile/stack. You can't move a tile to an empty space. When no more tiles/stacks can be moved, the game ends. Each player then reveals his animal character and takes all stacks that have that type of animal on top. The player scores one point for each tile he collects; in addition, if any of the type of animal are within a stack (not on top), the player scores points equal to the value of that buried animal tile.
The rules include a team variant in which players combine their scores at the end of the game, but don't know which animals their teammates are trying to save. Watch for tears and other clues of sadness when particular animals disappear from the board...
• Another title from Libellud is Le Petit Poucet, a cooperative game from Corentin Lebrat (co-designer of Ali) and Gilles Lehmann (co-designer of Ystari's Mousquetaires du Roy) in which players must bring Tom Thumb and his brothers through the forest and back to their cottage home while avoiding the wolves and not making enough noise that they rouse the ogre, from whose house they just escaped. Le Petit Poucet, for 3-6 players ages 7+, is due out in June 2012.
• In July 2012, Libellud will release a new edition of Dave Choi's Sticky Stickz, which Korean publisher Happy Baobab showed off at Spiel 2011. (Hmm, didn't I just write a nearly identical sentence above? Korean publishers! Check out Libellud for future co-publication opportunities!) As with Help Me!, Libellud is redoing the artwork for its edition of Sticky Stickz, presumably to make it as lush and inviting as every other game it releases.
• English rules are now posted on BGG for Régis Bonnessée's Seasons, due out from Libellud in August in North America and Europe. With the rules now avialable, who's up for rewriting this game's description?
• As I noted in a February 2012 BGGN post, Libellud will release Dixit 3 – an expansion set of cards for Dixit – in Sept/Oct 2012, whereas Asmodee will release these same cards in a standalone game titled Dixit: Journey for the U.S. mainstream market in July 2012.
• Finally, scheduled for late 2012 is Loïc Lamy's Ladies & Gentlemen, with artwork by Mélanie Fuentes. Libellud's description of this game is brief but intriguing, and I've translated it as follows: "In the unusual and asymmetric game of Ladies & Gentlemen, players compete in teams of two to make their lady look as good as possible." More details on this and other releases when possible...