So, a few years ago, I know people talked about AxD Icehouse
(Icehouse, but without the Icehouse rule, and your score at game end
is your attacking score multiplied by your defending score). I know
that if I didn't come up with the idea, I certainly paralleled its
development.
But...I never got around to, you know, playing it, until this past
Arisia. And you know what? It's good! Gone are the degenerate
strategies from Icehouse (ie, the offensive snowball and the defensive
shotgun). I'd go so far as to say that it's almost certainly a better
game than Icehouse, sharing in its good qualities, while avoiding the
unfun that is the Icehouse call and rewarding both good attacks and
good defenses. Unlike Icehouse's "you'll learn after the second time
you get put in the Icehouse not to spend too much time attacking
without a fortress", the very point structure encourages a balanced
strategy -- yet the nature of the game still rewards defense,
restructuring, and well-placed attacks, just as regular Icehouse does.
And no, the fact that this was the only game of Icehouse I won the
whole con had nothing to do with it. (well, aside from the fact that 2
of three of the other games had a player put into the Icehouse, not by
me). :-P
Any insight in why this never caught on? Intrest in trying it out at
Origins or elsewhere?
--
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." '---''(_/--' (_/-'