Gridlock

Gridlock

Designer: Andrew Looney
Type: Icehouse
Status: Free
Available from: http://www.wunderland.com/icehouse/Gridlock.html

Gridlock is an abstract strategy game for 4 players. To play, you will need a set of Icehouse pyramids, a chessboard, and some sort of token that can be passed around the table and placed in front of each player. We use a little toy model of the van that those meddling kids drove around in on the Scooby Doo show; for this reason, this token will be referred to in these rules as the Mystery Machine.

To play a standard game, give each player a full set of Icehouse pyramids of a single color. If you wish, you can also play a short game, using only 9 pieces, 3 of each size, for each player.

The game has two phases, the Placement Phase (players take turns placing a piece of their choice upright somewhere on the chessboard) and the Drop Phase (each player will choose a piece of their color that is still standing up and 'drop' it - that is, knock it over so that it's pointing away from the player.)

The Mystery Machine allows you to skip your turn. Whenever your turn comes up, if you have the Mystery Machine in front of you, you can choose to pass it along to the next player instead of placing or dropping a piece.

The object of the game is not merely to end up with the most pieces pointing in your direction, but also to have as many pieces as possible lined up in a single column as possible.