Icehouse Games

Freely available games that use Icehouse pieces


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Freely available games that use Icehouse pieces, listed alphabetically (click on the game's entry for more info)

[A]

  • [Alchemy ICE] - Noughts and crosses (aka 'Tic-Tac-Toe') with randomized 'symbols' of five different types, played with icehouse pieces.
  • [Antshouse] - An Icehouse game. Ants running the gauntlet over a pavement while mean kids tries to splat them.
  • [Arena (Icehouse)] - A combat game with Icehouse pyramids. By keeping track of, and selecting, the speed of your ship you will move around an imaginable arena for space combat, where the galaxy's aces settle the score!
  • [Armada] - A large fleet of small, fast ships against a smaller fleet of slower, but more powerful warships. Which side will emerge the victors in this battle of the seas?

[B]

  • [Battle Zone] - Be the first player to have a piece of each of the 10 colors in play cross over and off your opponent’s home row in this fast-paced icehouse game.
  • [Bears, Foxes & Hares] - Use your team of animals (a grumpy bear, an impatient fox and a nervous hare) to get to the center of the board first.
  • [Binary Homeworlds] - The 2-player version of the game Homeworlds
  • [Blam!] - Looking for someone to shove? Strategize in Blam! with two to four elbow-room seekers.
  • [Blockade (Icehouse)] - A two-dimensional race game for two players, played Volcano-style. A Volcano board is helpful but not necessary.
  • [Branches & Twigs & Thorns] - An elegant little strategy game for two or four players, a chessboard, and some Icehouse pieces. Players seek to build chains of pieces of their own color and to force their opponents to branch of from opposing pieces of their opponents' colors.

[C]

  • [Chaos] - In this game of controlled chaos, the players compete to capture all ten colors of Icehouse pieces.
  • [Cold Spell] - Form the most valuable words with cards gathered from the playing field using the Icehouse pieces.
  • [CrackeD Ice] - An Icehouse game you can play on a CD! An addictive dexterity game in the grand tradition of Don't Tip The Waiter.

[D]

  • [DNA] - The object of DNA is to possess the greatest value of Icehouse pieces at the end of the game.
  • [Dragon’s Hoard] - The hero who escapes the dungeon with the most treasure wins in this Icepack (piecepack/Icehouse) game.

[E]

  • [E, the Game of Martian Chinese Checkers] - The Icehouse game of Martian Chinese Checkers -- chinese checkers with Icehouse pieces.
  • [Edges] - Everyone on Mars is too busy playing Icehouse , so the Brigands of the Canals are seizing the canals, and making the farmers pay them for water.

[F]

  • [Forts] - All is not peaceful in Fortland -- everybody on this square-shaped continent is trying to invade everybody else! The only answer is to build forts.

[G]

  • [Gnaqush] - It’s not just the nickname of the game’s designer – it’s what you’ll do with your teeth as your carefuly-laid plans get thwarted and blocked over and over again in this strategic Icehouse game for 4 players.
  • [Gnostica] - An abstract territory based war game. Tarot cards make up the often-changing board, and players use Icehouse pieces to represent minions that control those territories.
  • [Gridlock] - An abstract strategy game for 4 players, played with Icehouse pieces -- end up with the most pieces pointing in your direction, with as many pieces as possible lined up in a single column.

[H]

  • [Hailstorm] - A quick, easy, luck-based game intended to feel vaguely like craps or roulette, played with Icehouse pieces.
  • [Hextris] - The object of this Icehouse game is to be the first to form three connected groups of five pieces of your color.
  • [Homeworlds] - Take on the role of a space-faring civilization that's become embroiled in an epic, galaxy-wide struggle between Good and Evil.

[I]

  • [Ice Age] - It's mastodon herding season, and you and the other hunters from your tribe have managed to spook a few of them into a box canyon. Now all you have to do is kill a few for the coming winter.
  • [Ice Market] - Players in Ice Market do not take turns. Once the 5-minute timer starts, swap and trade for all you're worth until the timer stops. You may swap anything that you possess: cards, pieces, information, etc. Your goal is to end the game with the pieces worth the most points.
  • [Icehouse] - The original game to play with your elongated pyramids -- This bizarre little game completely does away with the concepts of turn sequence and structure, as it doesn't use turns, or rounds, or anything else to break up the action.
  • [Icehouse Pieces] - Icehouse pieces are more of a game system than a game, since over a hundred games can be played with Icehouse pieces. Some of the more popular games include Gnostica, Zendo, Volcano, IceTowers, and the original game Icehouse.
  • [IceSickle] - The Martian Peg Game -- similar to the solitaire games in which you capture pegs by jumping over them with other pegs.
  • [IceTowers] - A high-speed game of pyramid stacking, played without turns on any flat surface
  • [IceTraders] - You are the commander of a fleet of starships -- will you play cooperatively, allying yourself with the Good side to fight Evil, or will you be Evil, intent only on the destruction of your fellow players?

[L]

  • [Leave No Man Behind] - This game takes advantage of Icehouse pyramids’ stacking ability to create a mix of Chinese checkers and macho “leave no man behind” wartime bravado.

[M]

  • [Martian Backgammon] - A variation of backgammon, played with Icehouse pieces
  • [Martian Chess] - Martian Chess is a chess-like strategy game in which location, rather than piece color, determines which pieces you may move.
  • [Martian Mud Wrestling] - A 2-player Icehouse Game with 3 rules. Not a lot like mud wrestling, but what can you expect from martians?
  • [Mundialito (Gold Cup)] - Move your pieces, push and jump over your opponents pieces until you score a goal in this Icehouse game.

[P]

  • [Pikemen] - Will your pikemen attack or defend? It's up to you in this game played with Icehouse pieces.

[R]

  • [RAMbots] - Similar to RoboRally, each player controls a single RAMbot, and will lay out strings of instructions which tell the RAMbot how to move and shoot beams of colored energy. The first player to tag four goals in a specified order wins the game.
  • [Rotationary] - A single-player puzzle game. Comparable to the Rubik's Cube(TM), each move causes a chain reaction. Before making a move each result must be considered. Unlike the cube, though, there are no wrong moves; it is possible to solve a puzzle at any state. Also unlike the Cube, the game is expandable.

[S]

  • [Share & Share Alike] - A game of shifting loyalties for 4 players. Players attempt to manipulate the market so that they have the greatest value in shares by the end of the game.
  • [Snowblind] - How do you win a game if you have more control over your opponents’ pieces than your own? Figure out the answer in Snowblind, a quasi-strategic Icehouse game for 4 players.
  • [Sorcerer's Apprentice] - An ever-changing checkers game for two players and an Icehouse set. Object: To end the game with the most magic hats in your Hat Rack. Gain magic hats by capturing your opponent's pieces. You can put hats on your pieces to grant them special powers.
  • [Spellcycles] - Create mysteeeerious patterns to cast mysteeeerious spells on two to five mysteeeerious players.
  • [Sprawl] - A game of strategy, resource management, planning, and diplomacy for three to eight players, played with a chessboard and Icehouse pieces.

[T]

  • [Thin Ice] - Sort of like Jenga, but with Icehouse pieces. This quick party game pits your balancing skills against that of others, allowing you to build piles up from three base pieces, but not allowing any easy stacking.
  • [Tic Tac Doh!] - A game similar to Tic-Tac-Toe played with Icehouse pieces. Players attempt to get three same-sized pieces in a row on a grid that is formed as the game is being played.
  • [Torpedo] - Each piece is a naval ship, all placed on the field of play in a mad rush. Then the small ships shoot torpedoes, then the medium ones, and then the large ones. The player with the most pips of ships left at the end is the winner.

[U]

  • [Undercut] - It's an auction game played with Icehouse pieces where the players score points based on sets of similar pieces, but the twist is that the player with the lowest score wins.

[V]

  • [Volcano] - A clever, puzzle-style game in which players move 'caps' around on top of a group of volcanoes, triggering eruptions which cause colored streams of lava to flow out across the playing field.

[Z]

  • [Zagami] - An Icehouse game of Martian microbial life for four players. Each player controls a single-colored colony of microbes. Only one colony will survive the long journey from Mars to Earth. Will it be yours?
  • [Zarcana] - A game of war, journeys, growth, life, and death. Icehouse pieces are your minions, spreading out across a world composed of tarot cards
  • [Zendo] - A game of inductive logic in which the Master creates a rule and the Students attempt to discover it by building and studying arrangements of pyramids. The first student to correctly state the rule wins.


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Last Updated: November 24th, 2007.