Do you remember when as a child you played with Roly-poly? Where no matter how poked, punched or thrown it was, it always got back on its feet because of moved center of gravity. Thanks to Brian Gomez’s idea of using it in board game, I was able to bring back childhood memories of playing with it.

Published by BrainGames in 2016. IceCool is a dexterity game, where little penguins want to bunk off and catch some tasty fishes from the cafeteria.

After opening the game box you are greeted by some sort of recursion or matryoshka box, because you find box, within a box, within a box, within a box, within a box. There are also wooden fish clips, deck of cards, four roly-poly penguins and the rulebook. All components are good quality. Boxes are imitating class rooms of our penguin school to snoop around. Our polar educational institution made out of boxes is built by connecting walls with wooden clips in designated spots. I found that clip spots are little flattened, so wooden fishes would come off and on easily. The clips are varnished and curved on the edges so they will not harm the game boxes in long term of use. Roly-poly are cute little penguins made of plastic with rounded bottom where little weight is placed. They looks durable and last for more than a  week of some really hard playing, fun having grownups.

You can play in group of 2 to 4 players, where one game can take from 10 to 30 minutes with setup. In game you are trying to gather as fast as possible clips in your color or catch all the runners by flicking your penguin. Each round someone takes the role of the catcher, if he touches a runner, he takes this runner’s id – When all id’s are taken, round ends. Every time the catcher is spinning near your penguin feels like you’re having cardiac arrest. Colored fish clips are placed over some doorways, running penguins are gathering them by running through these doorways – round ends if any of runners is able to get every clip in his color. There is no player elimination in this game, if you lose your id, it doesn’t matter you can move along. Catcher now has someone else on his radar. Runners will get cards with points worth from 1 to 3, immediately after they get a fish clip, the catcher will get his cards for each id he got (even his own) after round ends. After everyone has been in role of  the catcher the game ends, time to score your points and start the game again…

I can say that no matter how old are, you should get this game. IceCool is one of these games that now I can’t imagine my collection without. Easy to learn, open for constant learning of new tricks and mastering previously learned trickshots. It is extremely fun to play with lots of replayablity. Cards with points are adding some randomness, thanks to which less experienced players can go for luck. On the other hand, experienced players with lack of luck can help themselves by revealing 2 worth of one point cards, which allows them to immediately get a second flick, which brings some balance to the game. For stager players, game creator also made tournament rules, where point cards are excluded from game. This isn’t mentioned in the rulebook, but if you wish to have more rooms to snoop around, you can easily connect second game copy to build bigger school. You can feel that expansion packs are floating in the air. Possibility to add some kind of launching pads, slides, shortcuts or even more floors to the game is so tempting that there probably will be many DIY’s expanding basic school. Of course all of this only can happen, when people won’t be busy with training their triple-jump-double-slide trough many doorways trickshot.