Designed by: Dean Conrad,John Streets
In Ice Flow you are trying to get your explorers from Alaska to Siberia, crossing the Bering Strait with it’s hazardous ice flows, hungry polar bears, and other players trying to sabotage your journey!
Each player starts with three explorers, some fish and a rope, based in Alaskan coastal settlements and staring out across a hexagonal grid of sea and ice. The game is quite simple in terms of what you are trying to do – get your explorers across. You can cross ravines using rope, distract polar bears with fish and also – stretching the realism somewhat further – use the energy you get from eating a fish to swim through Arctic sea water.
But the real challenge is the ice itself. It’s constantly moving, drifting north or south or just rotating on the spot. If neighbouring ice flows slide by each other neatly, your explorers can just step from one hex to the next. But if the ice hexagons show a jagged edge you’ll need rope to cross (two ropes if both hexagons have jagged edges). So you are constantly trying to get more rope, or more fish, depending on your situation – and of course both can be scarce.
What’s more your best-laid plans can be scuppered – purposefully or otherwise – by the other players shifting the ice away from where you wanted it, or cajoling a polar bear towards you. And your three explorers share a communal rucksack that only has room for three items in it!
Ice Flow has a child-friendly theme, but it’s actually quite puzzle-like in terms of working out what’s best for you – and worse for the other players.
It's quite possible to go from a perceived win to isolation and desolation on the ice - and very likely this could be down to another player.
Again, Ice Flow is a deceptively think-y game, and there may be the odd time when there is a little wait for an opponent to decide what they want to do.
See Fidget Factor. Sometimes your best move is obvious and everything is rosy. Other times it can seem like a choice between a polar bear and the deep blue sea.
Although it can be a little brain-burny, Ice Flow shouldn't take too long. And the randomized setting up means it will always be different.
2-4
Players
8+
Years
60-90
Mins
Sam says
Some people will love Ice Flow - it's a simple theme that doesn't overload you with options. We found it's simplicity ended up counting against it though; puzzling over the same minimal options felt like it might have better suited a shorter game. That said, if you like pushing your fellow adventurers into the jaws of a passing polar bear, this does have that option too.