Most of the new games being demoed by Iello at Gen Con were on their way from the factory and expected to be at retail in September.

Kabuki ($15) is a memory matching micro game with beautiful images of Japanese theater costumes.

Me Want Cookies! ($25) is desert themed with a twist. I mean that literally. The idea is to follow the twisting paths across three cards, starting on the left with the desert rolled on a die, to the final desert on the right-most card, and then be the first to grab the token matching that last desert.

The next in Iello’s Tales & Games series, Little Red Riding Hood ($30), is something of a racing game. Most play Red or one of her friends. One person plays the wolf. All are trying to be the first to get to grandmother’s house. Movement cards are helpful, however, once used must be flipped to the alternate side so they can be used by an opponent.

In Medieval Academy ($40) everyone plays student knights. The goal of players is to advance their tokens on each of the boards representing the various knight school subjects—chivalry, dragon-fighting, service to the crown, etc.

Sapiens ($45) was described by Keith at Iello as Dominoes with power-ups and that certainly seems apt. Thematically, the game is about leading a tribe of primitives. Mechanically though, points for shelter and food are scored by placing domino-like pieces with matching sides. Each board space on which a piece is played confers a certain number of points, while some also provide special bonus actions.

Not due until Essen, The Big Book of Madness ($50) is a cooperative game in which the players, as student wizards, are challenged to fight back an increasingly dangerous stream of monsters that they unintentionally released from a magical tome. Of course, as students, they’re ill-prepared to face the threat from a book they were never even supposed to touch. So while keeping the monsters at bay, the players must at the same time research and cast ever more powerful new spells.

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What, it’s about wizards again? Yes, it’s another upcoming game with the ‘magic + witchcraft’ formula. But what makes The Big Book of Madness different from Abracada…What? is that, instead of defeating your opponents, you will have to cooperate with other players, a.k.a. your fellow magic students.

It all started when you’re bored enough to touch this Big Book in the school library (we all know that curiosity means trouble). With a huge monster unleashed to destroy the world on each page, it is you and your friends’ task to build a nice deck, use cards to buff each other, and cast powerful spells to dispel the creatures – above all else, don’t forget to put Fluffy back to sleep.

The Big Book of Madness plays 2 to 5 players in 90 minutes, and is expected to be released in July 2015.

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