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Ice Flow board game: The British are coming! The British are coming!
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Ice Flow (Ludorum Games, 2008)
While European designers (particularly, German) have been at the forefront of the board game revolution that’s been going on since about 1995, there are some other countries that have chimed in with revolutionary ‘soldiers’ of their own. Among those worthy of consideration is a company called Ludorum Games out of the UK, which, to date, has produced two very clever games – Fagin’s Gang and Ice Flow.
Their first offering, Fagin’s Gang, designed by Ludorum’s owner, Dean Conrad, was published in 2007 and won the Best British Game Award at the UK Games Expo that year. It featured a robust gaming system that placed players in the position of being street urchins for the infamous Fagin, of Oliver Twist fame. Player pieces, representing said urchins, move all over the pastel-colored board onto the streets of London (Bow Street, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Holborn Hill and the River Thames, for example), where they become engaged in stealing goods (books, jewelry, fruit, and silverware, for example). These goods must be then converted into shillings, which can be used to further advance an urchin’s thieving cause on the streets of London or buy the little urchin’s freedom (known, in the parlance of the game as ‘returning to Fagin,’ which permanently removes one of your urchins from the board). The first player to successfully return three of his five urchins to Fagin wins the game.
What’s tricky about the game is that each street on the board demands a certain amount of goods to grant an urchin the right to move on that street. Easy enough on the River Thames, where you need to pay the cost of just one book for every movement you make on the ‘street,’ but at St. Paul’s Cathedral, you’ll need four jewelry for every step you want to take. The goods you need to move on an individual street are generally not attainable on that particular street, so you’ll need to have one of your urchins working on one street to obtain goods necessary for another of your urchins to move on a different street. There are opportunities to buy and sell goods at the Smithfield Market, attendance at which will (or should) become an essential component of your overall ‘business plan.’ As you’re doing all of this, you have to be on the lookout for the local bobbies (or constables), one on every street. Urchins can’t occupy the same space as constables (or other urchins), which leads to a phenomenon known as ‘bumping’ in which an urchin forces another player’s urchin to move up or down the street, sometimes leading to a domino effect with the potential of bouncing an opponent’s playing piece right off the board altogether.
Like I said, a robust system, and though it can be played with up to six people, doing so is likely to entail a lengthy game, edging into multiple hours. Not in and of itself a bad thing, if your six players are familiar with the game. If all six are just learning, you might want to consider a sleepover.
One year later, Ludorum introduced Ice Flow, which went on to win the award for Best New Board Game at the UK Games Expo, 2008. Ice Flow, designed by Conrad and John Streets, is a distinctly different sort of game. Not nearly as complex, yet with its own intricate set of movement options and the delicious, delightful agony of decision-making about what to do next. In Ice Flow, you’re tasked with moving three explorers across the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia. On foot, more or less, jumping from one large chunk of ice to the next until you’ve reached the opposite shore.
Sounds easy enough, but the ice is tricky. First of all, the ice can move, as a consequence of turn action, by either you or opponents. It moves in a defined north/south way and can rotate on its own axis, as well. Secondarily, while many of these floating pieces of ice have resources that you need, some of them have polar bears on them, which requires some theme-oriented activities to avoid. All of the 6-sided, floating pieces of ice (very well-made, flat, blue disks of plastic) have either smooth or rough edges and while jumping from a smooth edge to another smooth edge is no problem, jumping onto a rough edge (called “pack ice” in the game), requires use of rope. And if you opt for a quick swim, it’ll cost you some fish (one per movement space in which you choose to swim), which, as it turns out, are also useful in distracting polar bears.
You have a rucksack with you to carry such essentials, but it will only hold three things at a time, so you’re forced to make decisions about which three items you’re going to carry and as your journey across the Bering Strait continues, which to pick up on available ice floes for future use.
It has something of a three cannibals versus three missionaries crossing a river feel to it, but it’s not a puzzle in that way. It’s a journey that requires planning, forethought and the occasional necessity of thinking on your feet as the ground (ice) shifts beneath you. The first player to move all three of his explorers into Alaska wins.
Keep an eye out for this company, its principle designer (Dean Conrad) and any games they produce in the future. Its first two games are signs of good things to come. They offer free shipping worldwide through the Ludorum Games shop.
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