This edition of our recap of Origins 2015 features IELLO.  I (Jeremiah) had the chance to spend some time with the guys at the IELLO booth, and Keith was kind enough to show me all the great new titles that were being unveiled at Origins this year!

IELLO released three games recently, a few of which were making their world premiere at Origins 2015. Let's take a quick look!

Welcome to the Dungeon

 A quick-playing card-based game of dungeon delving. Players plan to head into a dungeon to loot it. They take turns drawing from a common deck and deciding whether to place that card (monster) into the dungeon, or remove it and place it in front of them--and then removing one of the hero's equipment tokens. The trick is the monsters you put into the dungeon can only be defeated by certain equipment. So if you've removed said equipment you're going to take damage when that card shows up in the dungeon. Each round only one player will get to go into the dungeon so there's a good deal of jockeying for position depending on if you want to go in or stay out because you stacked the dungeon with lots of nasty baddies! 

Firestone got to play this at his regular game group this week, and he liked it a lot, too!

Master Fox

Master Fox is a dexterity/tactile game. Players will don the mask of their preferred master fox, rendering them blind. Meanwhile large wooden game pieces are placed into the chicken pen. Players are dealt three cards, giving them objects to search for (chickens, and the like) that they will need to find (again, while blindfolded) in order to score points. Gameplay is very simple but hilarity is guaranteed as each round more and more pieces are added to the game!

Pingo! Pingo!

A fun mashup of Rat Slap, and treasure hunting, and well... nothing we've seen before. Each game is 15 minutes exactly, since you play a CD soundtrack that's exactly 15 minutes long. (There's also ways to download to your mp3 player of choice.) While the track is playing there will be lively jungle drums playing during the day time, and subdued night sounds--crickets and such--during the night. Each player flips a card from their stack face up into the middle of the table. If it's day time and a day time treasure flips up, the first player to slap it gets it. If it's a night time card and a player slaps it then they lose a life point--they have seven. Then there are the special action cards. Some will have you running to touch two standees with bridges on them. Or, best yet, you have to shoot the yeti or the space penguin! Yes. It comes with a sweet suction cup musket that you have to use to shoot these standees!! If you don't complete the task before the penguins on the track say "Pingo! Pingo!" you lose a life! We demo'd it with the boys and had a blast!! 

IELLO has some really fun and diverse additions to their lineup with these three new releases! Pingo! Pingo! and Master Fox are both light enough to introduce to a casual gamer, or in a fun party setting, but they have enough dexterity challenges to them to make any gamer happy to bring them out. While Welcome to the Dungeon has plenty of strategic decisions to make and a good deal of bluffing opportunities that keep it interesting!!

 If you want to see the components, take a look at the video embedded below. And a big thanks to those who tune in on Periscope and interact with us! You guys make it fun!

Thanks so much for reading and watching! We'll be back real soon with more coverage from Origins 2015!! Don't forget to sign up for our email list and follow us on all of our social media outlets to stay up to date on all things Theology of Games!