All the monsters in King of New York are about to get two new sets of evolution cards when King of New York: Power Up hits this October. A new monster, Mega Shark, also makes his appearance with this expansion.

This set will also allow owners of the new version of King of Tokyo to mix in King of New York monsters in Tokyo with Evolution cards.

You’ll need $20, and a copy of the King of New York base game to play.

Included in the box:

• 112 Evolution Cards
• 1 Monster standee and board
• Assorted tokens
• 1 Rulebook

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Equal parts strategy and lighthearted fun is what you get from Iello. And to make that combination even more accessible, Iello is lowering the price on its Tales and Games series to $25.

The Pied Piper (March 17th, $25), the latest in that series, has players scurrying rodents through each other’s homes. Regular cards move individual rodents clockwise around the neighborhood of player homes, sending each closer to condemnation with every visit. Sewer cards allow players to bypass a house, such as their own. And a Pied Piper figure clears rodents when traveling through, thus allowing a home’s owner to partially restore its condition.

King of New York Power Up (fall, $20) expands King of New York with the same type of monster customization options found in King of Tokyo Power Up.

Loot N Run (March 17th, $15) is an easy card game about archaeological treasure-hunting. Each turn a player has the choice to loot (take a card), awaken (challenge another player), or run (score the cards held in hand). On every card is a number of treasures and a number of monsters. If whenever challenged a player holds more monsters than treasures, they lose the cards they have.

Tem-purr-a (March 17th, $15), about over-eating cats, is one of those play-cards-in-sequence games. The twist with this one is that if a person can’t play in sequence, then they have to draw a number of cards equal to the total value of all cards in the discard pile. Lurking in the draw pile, though, are a few indigestion cards, with more added every time one is drawn. For each one of those drawn, players collect indigestion tokens. The player with the fewest tokens is the winner.

Happy Pigs (March 17th, $35) is a cute pig-farming game with a economics lesson buried inside. Players who sell pigs at the same time must split the points.

The economics lesson at the heart of Candy Chaser (April, $15) is market-manipulation. [Fortunately, though, there is no CFTC jurisdiction!] The players as kids smuggling sweets in to school each secretly specialize in a certain type of candy. While of course they’re trying to maximize the going price of their own candy, if another player is able to guess their specialty they’re knocked out of the game.

Sea of Clouds (summer, $30) is about air pirates, which is enough for me. I was told, though, that others would also appreciate the Winston card drafting.

Oceanos (summer, $35), from designer Antoine Bauza, is a game in which players customize submarines to explore the sea.

Another game from Antoine Bauza, Monster Chase (summer, $25) is a quick cooperative memory game for little kids. The idea is to chase the monsters, each of whom is afraid of one particular toy, back in to the closet before they surround your bed.

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Worldbuilders and IELLO have announced a Gen Con 2015 monster for King of Tokyo and King of New York. The monster, Draccus, will be available to con goers for $20 at the Worldbuilders booth (#663). All proceeeds from the sales will go to Worldbuilders, which aids Heifer International to stop world hunger. After the convention you’ll be able to snag Draccus from The Tinker’s Packs, again with the proceeds being donated to the charity.

Draccus is the creation of New York Times bestselling author Patrick Rothfuss, and the art was done by Régis Torres.

In Rothfuss’s book The Name of the Wind, the narrator, Kvothe, finds himself face-to-face with the Draccus, a very real beast on which the legends of dragons were based. Kvothe is shocked that not only does it actually exist, but he suddenly finds himself having to survive an encounter with one, and save an entire city from its drug-crazed rampage. Kvothe needs to use all his wits and tricks to come out alive, let alone triumphant.

I love the idea of the monster being used to raise funds for charity. It’s a pretty sweet looking one too.

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I didn’t count them myself but Iello’s Matt Bonin told me that the company released 20 games since last Gen Con!

Among the newest making their appearance at this year’s show, the most anticipated had to be King of New York. I expect it would have made a bigger splash if Iello had more than just 200 available to sell.

Also designed by Richard Garfield, King of New York borrows a lot from its predecessor, King of Tokyo, yet presents players with a few more interesting choices and alternate strategies. For example, in the new game players must not only consider the risks and rewards of entering Manhattan (which replaces Tokyo) but also a location from among New York’s other four boroughs while outside the city center. In each borough, destroying buildings (achieved with certain dice results) earns a player benefits like victory points, energy, and health, but turns those building tokens in to military units, which may later attack the monsters.

King of New York should be available at retail outlets in September for $50.

Night of the Grand Octopus ($40, available October), which we previewed at Toy Fair, is a bluffing and negotiation game with a Cthulhu-like theme. Players move their cultist figures simultaneously around the board trying to collect ingredients for a summoning. Whenever two or more cultists end up in the same location, the players must agree on who will get the ingredient or all suffer a penalty.

The latest in Iello’s Tales & Games series, The Hare & the Tortoise ($30, available now) has players wagering on the result of a race among five animals. In general, card play advances the animals, but not always in a simple relationship. Depending on the talents of a particular animal too many cards could freeze it (when ahead, the hare may decide to take a nap) or it may move forward even if no cards are played (the tortoise is a slow but steady racer).

Friday the 13th is a new version of Reiner Knizia’s weird trick-taking card game, Poison. The game includes three suits: mirrors, black cats, and ladders. Collected cards are negative points, except for the player with the most of each suit, for whom that suit counts as nothing.

Looking forward, Iello will be distributing in English several games from French publisher Serious Poulp: Steam Torpedo, a two-player game of tactical submarine combat, 8 Masters’ Revenge, a card game of Kung Fu fighting, and 7th Continent, a solo or cooperative game of adventure and exploration.

Also planned for 2015 are The World of Yo-Ho, a board game about animal pirates that uses smartphones as playing pieces, and a game without a title yet, which features cooperative play, deck building, and fighting monsters.

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King of New York, the follow up of the imensly popular King of Tokyo, will be flooding the news sites soon as details are released about the game. Until then we’ve got an exclusive card preview for the upcoming game. Behold, Phoenix Blood!

King of New York will add new mechanics to those familiar with King of Tokyo, adding things like building destruction, monster fame, and multiple control points on a larger board. There will be 6 new monsters, but you’ll also be able to use the monsters already released in this new game.

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