Looney Labs Icehouse Mailing list Archive

Re: [Icehouse] new questions asked by Brian

  • FromJoshua Kronengold <mneme@xxxxxx>
  • DateMon, 22 Jan 2007 14:08:54 -0600
Andy Looney writes:
>That can be tricky. Most of the time, prisoners end up getting squandered. 
>Any old Icehouse vets want to help out with this one?

Hmm.

1. Use the prisoner to knock off a blocker of the same size (by using
   a standing block).  This does put the former prisoner at risk --
   but leaves it counting for points, and is often slightly more
   effective as a block than you could do with a regualr tip-block
   (and in some ways, more effective than a tail-block).

2. Use the prisoner to tail-block attackers -- either by attacking one
   of your one-point pieces (ie a sacrifice), or by attacking an
   opponent.  While this does involve losing a point, the sacrifice is
   particularly notable, since by its nature, it lays out a trap that
   unaware opponents can fall into -- as continued attempts to
   attack that area will often hand you free prisoners.

3. Use the prisoner to ice a third opponent.  Obviously, this is
   inferior to using it in a "prisoner" fashion, but once you have
   picked up hostile prisioners, it's a nice way to get it counting
   for points (and is less risky than attacking with your own pieces.

>> 2) Could you demonstrate a cool pieceniking project that would be  easy
>> to do at home? I haven't had much luck with filling pyramids  with sand
>> (the glue at the bottom frequently doesn't seal, so the  sand leaks out),

I've found hotglue to be fairly easy to work with -- the important
thing is to have a hot glue pad -- as that lets you get a nice smooth
seal without having to chip away the extra clue.  As some people know,
I've even gotten this method to work with water-filled pieces -- the
Dicehouse pieces (and a water+sand filled set that is much more
subtle) and over the three years since I did that project, only a
handful (3/15? 4?  Something like that) of pieces have needed to be
redone.

>Sorry, I'm not much of a pieceniker, since I'm happiest with standard 
>factory-made pieces we dreamed of getting made for so very long. But again, 
>maybe others on this list could run with this idea.

I do think the factory-made pieces have made peiece-nicker's jobs
much, much easier.  We are far beyond the days where you had to cut
your own pieces in metal shop. (As cool as Number 12's set is).

-- 
       Joshua Kronengold (mneme@(io.com, labcats.org)) |\      _,,,--,,_  ,)
--^--   "Did you know, if you increment enough, you   /,`.-'`'   -,  ;-;;'
 /\\    get an extra digit?"  "I knew," weeps Six.    |,4-  ) )-,_ ) /\     
/-\\\   "We knew. But we had forgotten."	     '---''(_/--' (_/-'

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