On Jul 17, 2007, at 4:54 PM, Elliott C. Evans wrote:
miyu wrote: > As a complete side note. Is there a youtube video or anything that > would explain to me step by step how to play Icehouse? Reading the > posts about the tournament make it sound so cool but I have never > understood the written directions. Well, this is troubling to me, as I'm the person who wrote the version of the rules that appears in "Playing with Pyramids". My 'script' for the class is largely based on that text, so I'm curious what I need to add or change in the text to clarify things. Have you learned any of the other pyramid games from the book?
I think the problem is that it's a very visual/temporal game, and even the example game with the photocopied diagrams is a bit hard to follow. I understood the rules OK when I read them from the book, and even a few of the strategies, but when I tried playing at first it felt kind of flat and boring. Then I had the chance to play with Josh at Arisia, and it all clicked, as I could see more directly how it all fit together.
I think that of the games, Icehouse is the one that could benefit the best from a well produced video, that demonstrates the rules, strategies, and sample games (the nice thing about video is you can freeze frame in the middle of a sample game to point something out). Just the rules and some basic strategy tips aren't even quite enough; you really need to see how those strategies work in a whole game before it all makes sense.