At Toy Fair, Iello was talking about expanding its line of children’s games this year.
The Legend of the Wendigo, available now at $20, centers around a native-American monster fable. In this version of the fable, the monster takes over the bodies of kids at summer camp. One player replaces a new camper tile each round with a special version that shows the wendigo on the back-side. If the other players can’t guess which camper has been replaced, the monster player gets to posses another, keeping past victims as they go.
Also available now is The Mysterious Forest ($30). This one has memory and resource-collection elements and is based on The Wormworld Saga comic series. It’s also a cooperative game. At the beginning, players get a quick look at a set of cards with the resources they need to collect. Then the cards are turned face down and the players roll dice and pick tokens representing the resources they need. Finally, the cards, which represent an unfolding story, are turned back over one-at-a-time. If they have the right tokens, they complete the saga and win. Fortunately, they also start out with a few special Loki helper tokens to fill in the gaps.
For adults and older children, Iello had on display Pyramids (March, $20), a game of constructing monuments in ancient Egypt. Each round, players choose from among a pool of god tiles that give them the ability to add stone cards to their pyramids and obelisks. At the end, pyramids score points for stones strung together and in various colors. Obelisks score points for height, glyphs, and a range of colors.