A newsletter for Icehouse players
| Issue #6 | May, 1992 |
An Introduction by Dr Cool
Hey there, folks!
Thanks a lot for your many responses to the purple survey cards we sent out. The comments were so much fun to read that we decided to include some of them in this issue. In addition, we have a couple clever little strategies for you (only one of which requires manual dexterity), a gallery of runner-up Tournament T-shirt design entries, and a really cool review of Icehouse that we recently received in the mail, There is also a flyer enclosed, with many details on the upcoming Annual International Icehouse Tournament
A tournament Yay! I'm actually beginning to get used to these things. Each year turns out better than the last. This one is our fourth, go we're confident that it'll be a blast. Hope you can all come and play (or at least stop in and say hi). I enjoy meeting the new enthusiasts, as well as seeing the familiar faces of veteran icers.
Which brings me to the meat of this meltdown. There are two major changes in the upcoming tournament, both are detailed in the flyer, but I will emphasize:
An appeal to people who are new to the game: Don't assume that the tournament is beyond your capabilities! Beginning players have, in previous tournaments, made it into the final round We expect this to continue to occasionally happen in future tourneys as well. The tournament is the perfect spot to pick up new tactics, fine tune your skills, and meet other players (beginners and experts). The atmosphere of a tournament is a great combination of fun and stress, like a two day party held on a battlefield You shouldn't pass it up if there is any way you can be there.
See ya soon --
Dr Cool
P.S. How do you like the new Hypothermia logo? Frank Cooper sent it in, and we decided to try it on for size. Got a better idea? Then send it in!
This strategy plays on a very common situation: A 3 pointer being iced by a I pointer and a 3 pointer. If done successfully, this will allow you to save a 3 point piece (at the expense of a I point piece) and you'll wind up with more prisoners than you started out with.
The diagrams show how the 2-for- I Exchange works. One important thing to keep in mindYou need a one point piece of your own color. If you have a tendency to play all of your small pieces early in the game, you won't be able to do this maneuver. Also note that at the end of this maneuver, you'll have a I point pie-cc that's being iced by a 3 pointer - a situation that's perfect for Trading Up or Dealing Attack Pieces.
The Small Piece Feint is basically a defense against the strategy called "Stealing a Fortress.* However, you may not be able to get away with this in games with more than 2 players.
Suppose you see a niche where you could close off an area with one piece and then get a fortress by dropping a I pointer into the enclosed space. You have 2 options. Option I is to close the space off first. and then drop in your small piece. However, your opponent may steal the fortress from you by dropping in a I pointer while you're reaching for a small piece of your own. Option 2 is to place the I pointer into the niche and then set out the blocking piece to create the fortress. Again, this nay fail because your opponent can probably attack your I pointer while you are reaching for a piece to block off the attack.
The Small Piece Feint is a combination of the 2 options. What you do is this: Act as if you are using Option 2. Pick up a 1 pointer and hold it over the niche, as if you are trying to see if it will fit. You might even set it down in the niche - just don't let go of it. While you're doing this, keep an eye on your opponent's hand. Wait until he or she picks up a 2 pointer. Your opponent will obviously try to attack the I point piece you are using to bait the trap. Once they've got an attack piece in their hand (and they're in an attack-oriented mindset) then quickly pull the I pointer back and switch to Option 1. Set the decoy piece on your pad, pick up a 2 pointer, block off the niche, then pick up the 1 pointer again and drop it into the enclosed space.
This will usually work because your opponent will be 1 step behind you during the entire maneuver. They won't know what you're up to when you take back the piece you were getting ready to play, and when they see that you've got an empty fortress shell, they'll have the wrong size piece in their hand and they won't be able to steal it from you. Be warned that if you try to use this strategy against the same person too many times (particularly if they also read Hypothermia) this strategy may lose its effectiveness.
This strategy emerged from a discussion on the Icehouse E-mail mailing list. What's that? You say you have E-mail but you don't know about the Icehouse mailing list? Then send a message to Elliott "Eeyore" Evans at: ee0r+icehouse-subscribe@andrew.cmu.edu.)
Eric Zuckerman had raised this question: "I just bought myself an Icehouse set, and I got a buncha friends together (sounds perfectly normal so far, huh?) to play.... and we *all* always seem to wind up in icehouse-jeopardy, simultaneously, game after game after game. Nobody wants to call it because we like each other too much, and I'm wondering if you could offer advice. Fortress-building seems to be one of the hardest things about the game; when my friends and I play, everybody plays very offensively, icing other players' defenders while having their own iced. What to do?"
If you ALL have trouble building fortresses, try this fairly common opening, which I call the "snowball opening* (Not to be confused with the "cheeseball maneuver"). Its not something to do in every game, but it allows everyone a fair shot at a fortress very early in the game.
In a four player game, each player puts a I-point piece in the center of the playing area. These four pieces all touch, forming a square. The players then generally place a I- or 2-point piece along one side of their first piece, and then cover the other side, either with a third defensive piece or with a piece attacking their neighbor at an extreme slant (against the sick of their own piece).
Among beginners, this generally yields a fortress for each player. Among more advanced players, often one player will finish early and attack someone else's center piece before they can defend it. (If I recall correctly that's the main reason I got put in the icehouse in the lag game of the third tournament.) Even if this doesn't happen, the pieces defended in put by attacking pieces can be exposed with some creative over-icing, so there's plenty of room for the game to get interesting.
Many of the games I've played have started this way. It's a good, solid opening which can simplify the fortress-building problem, while still allowing the better players to hose the worse ones. It doesn't work very well with other than four players, of course, but that's your problem.
Hi folks!
Just thought I'd drop you a line and let you know how much I enjoy the game. Delightful What surprises me is the response I get when I show the game to people. Either they are fascinated or are completely uninspired. Nothing halfway, which is kind of odd.
Icehouse has some of the elements of a fine card game. This requires an intuitive grasp of the economics of the game, balancing risk factors and making split decisions.
It also has some of the elements of a good board game, requiring the player to view the tactical side of the game on two levels. On the micro-level when analyzing the practicality of a given move and the macro-level as to the desirability of the same move.
It also has some elements of an interesting puzzle. A good grasp of spatial relationships, good manual dexterity and good sense of timing make it more of a challenge than many popular puzzles that don't include the Sam element Lastly, the game looks neat while in play, and is a whole bunch of fun to play.
Cordially,
John Huff
Let's give a big round of applause and a heady 'Thank you' to everyone who submitted an entry to the 4th Tourney T shirt contest! The winner is Skip Sonesen. His design appears on the enclosed tournament flyer. The 4 runner ups are shown below. Honorable mention goes to Meg Cooper, who suggested this idea- "Man with a wheelbarrow full of icehouse pieces, a la the movie called "The Point," but the man wouldn't have a pointed head." (Sorry Meg, we didn't get around to working up a drawing of it.)
Perhaps so. But if people were paying money for this thing, they'd expect to get their money's worth, and given that we only put out an issue when we've got the time, the inclination and enough material to make it worthwhile, the product might not live up to its pricetag. So, we'd rather just make it free, and tell people that if they wish to contribute some pocket change to the funding of this newsletter, we'll be happy to accept it. (By the way, thank you to all of the people whove made donations to Hypothermia! It is greatly appreciated!)
We agree that it is nicer that way. Bit it's also more trouble, which in turn makes the issues come out less often. The main problem is that with the folded format the number of pages must be divisible by 4. To do this issue, for example, we'd have had to pad it out with 2 more pages, or cut out 2 pages, neither a which was desirable.
Yes, we've heard of it, but we haven't been out there yet.
Laura Palmer was killed?
Yay!
| <Previous Issue | ^Table of Contents^ | Next Issue> |