Tarot by IELLO Games

IELLO Games was founded in 2004 and is now part of the global board and card game industry. In 2025, the company added the Traditional Games series to its portfolio, publishing several historical card games from around the world in new, original designs. The historical games are published in collaboration with the French Playing Card Museum and the city of Issy-les-Moulineaux. A possible solution may be to play it safe with games whose quality has been proven over centuries.

It's great that one of the selected games is French tarot. Tarot is usually at the top of the popularity rankings in France. The standard playing material from traditional manufacturers is the so-called Tarot Nouveau (sometimes also called Bourgeois Tarot). However, France also had a tradition of playing with the Marseille tarot, which is now used more for fortune telling.

The deck for IELLO Games was designed by Charlène Ingouff. The cards offer an original graphic design for the 78 cards of the original deck, measuring 61x112 mm. The overall graphic design is playful, aimed at players who are not burdened by the need for traditional design. The deck is thematically tuned to the world of fantasy spiced with esoteric symbols. It uses the usual shapes of French card symbols, and within each suit, the cards are colour-coded for easier orientation during the game. The tarot cards are more colourful. The larger surface area allowed the artist to develop her creativity. Some cards attempt a two-headed solution, while others are single-headed.

All cards have an index with the value marked in all four corners, respecting the established Tarot Nouveau solution with the typical halving of the suit index and court cards marked with the letters V-C-D-R, with aces marked with the letter A. Marking each tarot card with a larger Arabic numeral to indicate its value is also standard in French-speaking countries. Thanks to this, the design of the cards could be freed from historical patterns while retaining their use in the game.

Above: cards from Modern French tarot deck designed by Charlène Ingouff and manufactured by IELLO Games, France, 2025. 78 cards, 61x112 mm in box.

The neat packaging in a nice "drawer" box is common to the entire Traditional Games series. As in other cases, the instructions for playing the game are included on the packaging. The main problem with IELLO tarot cards now is other players who want to use them with me.