Icehouse: Martian Chess

I remember seeing an advertisement for Icehouse in a flyer at a GAMA convention I slipped into one year.  I didn’t know what it was, but the colorful pyramidal pieces stuck in my mind and I was semi-obsessed (which is about as obsessed as I get with anything) with the strange game.  Unfortunately, it was one of those weird little games and I never saw it anywhere.  Then, one day, I did find it.  However, it was $30 dollars, and for a package full of plastic that’s only about a 5x4x4 cube, it seemed like a bit much.  So I stewed over it for several months, and one day, in a fit of buying stuff, I finally got it, and I’m happy to say that I’m glad I did.

The set contains  some reference cards for a game called Zarcana, which sounds interesting though I’ve never played that one, as well as little rulebooks for Zarcana (an abstract game of territory acquisition using tarot cards, not included),  Ice Traders (a game of space exploration and a battle between good and evil), Ice Towers (a real-time game of pyramid stacking) and of course, Martian Chess (a chess-like game where you only control pieces that are on your side of the board.)  There are also a slew of other games like Pikemen, Zigami and RAMbots that are freely posted on the Loony Labs website (www.LooneyLabs.com).  The set also contains five sets of pieces in four colors (red, blue, green and yellow) and three sizes for what amounts to 60 sturdy little pyramids.  The pyramids are marked with pips, one, two, or three, which are often used to dictate points.  Of course the pips correspond to the sizes of the pyramids as well, so unless you have poor spatial relations skills, it should be pretty obvious what’s what.

Martian Chess is the spotlight of this review, because it’s the name that’s actually listed on the container (which isn’t especially sturdy, unfortunately.  I had to tape mine shut to keep from losing pieces.)  The game is designed to be played by four players, each set up in a corner of the chessboard, not included.  Two players can play on half a board, and if you think hard enough, three players can play, but you have to “warp” through the missing quadrant of the board as though it weren’t there.  The big pieces, Queens, move like chess queens.  The medium pieces, Drones, move like short range chess rooks, and the smallest, the Pawns, move like very short range chess bishops.  The object of the game is to capture as many points worth of pieces as you can, and have the highest score at the end of the game.  The tricky thing is, that if you use your Queen to capture someone’s Drone, you get the points for it, but the other player now has control of your queen.  It really is terribly clever.  Now, none of the games that I saw used dice, or any real form of luck in them, so these games are highly strategic, in other words, I suck at them.  Which is a shame because I really do like the set.

So, basically, if you like strategy games like checkers or chess then there is a vast world of possibilities with an Icehouse set.  You can also supplement your set with individual “stashes” (the game company proclaims itself to be modern day hippies) of  single color Icehouse pieces.  This comes in handy if you really like Martian Chess, because it looks better if all of the players are using the same color.  (I like orange.  I really think I’m going to buy some more pieces.)  As it stands now, the set that I have doesn’t seem to be for sale anymore.  You can buy the individual stashes of 15 pieces, all of one color for just $8.00 a package though, and the game rules are available in a book called Playing With Pyramids ($12), but it’s just a reference because the rules are all online.

If all else fails, I think they make handy generic counters for D&D games, say if you don’t have enough miniatures or such.

Looney Labs also make several other great games like Aquarius (heh, hippies), Chrononauts, and Fluxx which I’m sure all of the crew down at DnDorks headquarters would agree are great games.

So I’d rate this set as follows: