New Rule

Introduction: Ice Dice may appear to be a simple game of “get to the other side,” but it’s a bit more slippery than normal. Stategic planning, timing, and a little bit of luck will decide the winner as players attempt to navigate the game grid while wrestling with their unpredictable and often adversarial movement rolls.

Players: 2+

Materials:

• Six-sided dice, one per player.
• Pawns or tokens of some sort to represent each player.
• The game board, or a facsimile thereof. Any grid of spaces may be used as long as the starting spaces have equal positional advantage.

Setting Up: Each player chooses one of the gray squares on the game board and places their token there. Players roll off to see who goes first, then play proceeds to the left.

How to Play: On their turn, players roll their die to see how far they move that turn. Movement is along ranks and files only (except where stated below), and players must move the total amount shown if possible. Players may not land on or move through black squares. The following special cases apply:

• On a roll of six: When a player rolls a six, they may choose either to move six spaces along any rank or file, or move one space diagonally.
• On a roll of one: When a player rolls a one, they may choose either to move their own token one space along any rank or file, or move any other player’s token one space along a rank or file.

If a player is unable to move the number shown on their dice due to spaces, tokens, or the board edge, they select their direction as normal and must move as far as possible before they are blocked. Players may move through other players’ tokens, but they may not land on a space already occupied by another player.

Victory Conditions: The rule set and basic game board allow for a number of different types of competition. Some suggested game types include:

• Sprint: Players move towards the starting (gray) squares on the opposite side of the board from their own start. The first player to land on one of their opposing gray squares wins.
• There and Back Again: Similar to Sprint, but players must land on an opposing gray square and then return to their own start to win.
• Around the World: Players must make a circuit of the starting areas in clockwise order and then return to their own start to win.

Further Suggestions: Players are encouraged to experiment with different board styles and shapes, and with different game types. Try a variable objective game, such as King Of The Hill, where players vie to occupy a randomly-selected space on the board that changes every six turns. Feel free to post new game themes to this post

Next: Designing “Ice Dice”

Designing Ice Dice stemmed from my recent critique of favorite board game classic, the aMAZEing Labyrinth. I was intrigued by the game’s two central mechanics, pathfinding and random map generation, so I decided to see if I could put together a different game with the same core, but within the super-simplified canon I’ve been working with so far with these little game designs.

In Labyrinth, the tile shift is the random factor. In a dice game, it’s the roll, so I started there. Using a dice roll to determine movement rate is a common technique, so I sought a new twist. Most games with dice movement force the player’s travel onto a path or “rail,” but what if they didn’t? A movement system with multiple avenues of travel but random travel rate emerged. Player choice would be in which way to go, and the struggle would be to try to offset or compensate for your wildly unpredictable speed by shrewd path selection–players sort of “home in” on their target.

But what target? Just getting to the other side of a board is too deterministic: the player with the best rolls wins. But by adding walls and blocked squares, players now have to find a non-linear (in the original geometric sense) path to their objective. I should note that the similarity to a crossword puzzle was totally accidental Adding walls facilitates the homing in aspect, but presents a new challenge to address: getting stuck.

On an open board, players would always be free to move as far as they want. But with narrow places constrained by blocked squares, players could all too easily fall victim to a series of unlucky rolls that make it impossible to fit through the gap. Some ability to change your roll, an element of tactical choice was necessary to take the edge off the randomness. Similar to my other designs, I designated alternative actions for special rolls: move diagonally, or move someone else. Both make play much more competitive, as you can now actively plan a route and take preemptive action to offset future bad rolls. Now, there’s some real strategy to the game.

As a welcome bonus to the design, I found that the rule set supports and even encourages a wide variety of game boards and objectives. A simple race is going to get old fast, but new boards in all kinds of shapes and configurations can keep the game vital and dynamic for much longer. As players develop strategies and mastery over the movement system, they can design new playing spaces that challenge their skills. It’s the win-win that all designers look for: a finite system that supports endless user-created content in a self-perpetuating pattern that bring new life to the game well beyond the designer’s original plan.

Tags: Game Design //