Brain Games BGP5168 Publishing Ice Cool - Flicking Action Dexterity Game for All Ages - Kids, Family, Adults, and Gamers

Product Information

If there is one genre that I can’t get enough of it’s card drafting games. But if there is a second genre that I am addicted to, it’d have to be dexterity games. I love them. I think it’s because they always feel so unique when you compare them to each other. That and they are usually the genre of games that seems to inspire the most talked about moments. That one amazing shot will always create a lasting memory. We strongly recommend Ice Cool in both of our categories of cognitive accessibility. Emotional Accessibility Ice Cool is a very short game, if you want it to be – the formal game rules say everyone takes a turn at being catcher and it’s over but it’s a tournament style thing that is amenable to all kinds of other modes if it’s necessary to worry about discomfort. That’s useful, because since this is a game of getting up and moving about it might be a little more taxing than most of the games we tend to look at here. It’s not exactly an aerobics class but you do need to orbit the game a lot to find the right positions for what you want to do. As play progresses, the Catcher takes turns to try and hit the Penguins to eliminate them from the game and to collect fish cards to add to their score. The round ends if a Penguin gets through each door and collects all the fish or the Catcher eliminates all the Penguins. The rounds continue until each player has taken a turn to be the Catcher, whereupon you total up your points to find out who is the winner.

Ice Cool 2 is a standalone expansion, meaning you can play the expansion without needing the base game (although its way better if you do have the base game, more on that later). The components in Ice Cool 2 are nearly identical to the original. There are 4 penguins and matching fish in different colors from the original. The cards have gotten a bit of an upgrade with the addition of tasks on the 1 value cards. A player can also use two value 2 cards to move any fish to a new doorway. The box setup is also very similar, being a mirrored version of the original. Finally, the rulebook has gotten a bit of an upgrade and is much clearer now. The round ends when either the Runner has collected all 3 fish tokens or when the Catcher has caught the Runner for the second time. However, catching the Runner for the second time doesn't give another benefit for the Catcher apart from ending the round). The Catcher has to catch the Runner twice before the round ends. When the Catcher touches the Runner for the first time, he takes away his ID card as usual. Then the Runner is moved to the Classroom and the Runner immediately takes a turn starting from the red circle like in the beginning of the game. The Catcher's turn completely ends and he cannot play two fish cards with value 1 to take an extra turn before this immediate turn of the Runner. As I say though this is a game about failing in a funny way, and as such being unable to play well doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. The physical barriers to playing well are high, but the physical barriers to having fun are relatively low with regards to this category of game. It’s a more mentally taxing take on the original game’s premise, but unfortunately it doesn’t take long for this edition to come off the rails. The requirement to collect different cards means that you can spend several turns fishing for the ones you need before you’re actually able to do anything, and it soon becomes frustrating. Rails and Sails adds length and complexity, but it offers little new in terms of gameplay.

I think though that it’s likely to be an issue with vanishingly small relevance – I don’t doubt people can become Ice Cool masters if they want, I just suspect most people won’t want to. While mismatched skill levels are likely to be common, they’re not likely to be mismatched enough to trigger the problems relevant to this category. If the Catcher at any point during his turn touches one or more Runners, he takes away their ID cards. There’s no formal need for communication during play. None of the cards have anything written on them that requires literacy, and the only noise will be that which you provide yourself as excited commentary to the action.

The basic rules and win conditions are the same in a five-player game. With six to eight players there's an extra catcher. In this scenario, the hall monitors work as a team to bring their delinquent peers to account. Because catcher roles rotate, with seven players someone will play this role twice. This unevenness might ruffle the feathers of more particular players. But this game is best for light-hearted play.Gameplay in Ice Cool is very easy to learn. One player starts as the catcher, while the rest of the players are the runners. The game ends after as many rounds as the number of players (each player will be the Catcher once). Count the victory points from your fish cards and the player with the highest total of victory points becomes the winner! Don't forget to also count your revealed ones! The game is over when every player has been the Catcher once. The player with the most victory points is declared the winner! There is a very small degree of numeracy required, but it can be bypassed (and indeed, to the game’s improvement) by simply summing up the number of fish that were captured. That in itself can be a task of comparison instead of arithmetic. In that case some kind of running total of wins would need to be kept if the element of competition is important. Really though you can just put two piles of collected fish beside each other and ask which has more – that’s the winner of that round. The ice skates and random points need not be a feature of play, but they’re not particularly cognitively expensive to include if you want all elements of the game preserved.