Talk:Pach-Ice-i

Pseudo-FAQ

Q: Why did you choose 8-sided dice instead of normal 6-sided dice?

A: 8-sided dice are like two Icehouse pyramids glued base-to-base. Pyramids are cool. Therefore, 8-sided dice are cooler than normal 6-sided dice. If you don't care how cool the game is, I think it will work just as well with normal (and more easily obtainable) 6-sided dice, although a game may take a little longer that way.

Q: Why the odd movement pattern?

A: I wanted the two players to be tactically and strategically engaged from early on in the game. To some extent, that's satisfied by the ability of either player to move the other's pieces, but this seemed to be an easy way to increase engagement even more. The movement pattern is hard to describe in words, but easy to understand if you see a diagram - which will eventually be added to the rules page.

Creator's Comments

I've received some suggestions for a four-player variant, with somewhat more complex rules for landing on an occupied square. I'm looking into this.

The four-player suggestion also led to a thought about three- and six-player variants, played on a board of hexes instead of squares.

I've not yet played through a full game yet (time constraints), but the partial games I've played have brought out the following:

• Because of the pip-count requirement for being able to move the opponent's pieces, there's incentive for both players to enter all of their pieces as quickly as possible. There is also incentive for hitting the opponent's pieces on the opponent's color.
• Because the color of the space on which a piece is hit determines where the piece goes, there's little incentive to hit a piece that's on your own color space, and plenty to hit on the opponent's color. Hitting your own piece on the opponent's color is a good way to get a piece to goal quickly.

Custom board

You've listed this in the "Custom board" category, however it seems that the board is easily adaptable from a chessboard - by eliminating a row and column and adding the eight-or-so marked squares. -- Rain 17:30, 5 Mar 2006 (GMT)

I thought of that, but I tried it with a few people, and we discovered that "elimination" had to mean physical obscuration, rather than simply ignoring during play, or we ended up trying to use them. Given the admittedly complex movement rules and restriction, I think it's better to go with the "custom board" concept. One could, after all, make the same case for just about any game that plays on a square-gridded board of less than 8x8, such as Volcano, and yet Volcano board rates a separate category. -- FreeTrav 17:44, 5 Mar 2006 (GMT)

Are you familiar with the chessboard bandana, FreeTrav? It's a convenient way to eliminate rows and columns from a cheesboard to get any grid board 8x8 or smaller. (In defense of Category:Volcano board, that particular board is used quite frequently.) I think that a custom board instead where simply resizing a larger board would not be practical, either in cases where a larger board is needed, specific locations on the board needed to be marked, or are just plain weird. To me, 'custom board' says that I would be better off making my own board, rather than adapting an existing one. Here are some better custom board examples: Trice, E, the Game of Martian Chinese Checkers, Bears, Foxes & Hares, and Nightmare Pachisi. - Cerulean 16:58, 6 Mar 2006 (GMT)

I've seen the Bandana, yes (and at some point I'll add one to my Icebox), and I can see it being viable for the basic checkered Pach-Ice-i board, provided that you also have something - coins, perhaps - to mark the special spaces. But I don't see Nightmare Pachisi as being a better custom board example than Pach-Ice-i, especially since Peter Aronson applied your idea - ignore a row and column and use something else as markers for the special spaces - to his own game. I suppose it might be more accurate to describe the category "Custom Board" as being for boards that aren't "off-the-shelf" the way chessboards or Volcano boards are (I consider Volcano boards to be off-the-shelf as they were widely distributed by Looney Labs, in Mar's Guide and at least one issue of Hypothermia, and the Kadon boards). Think of it this way: If you don't have a fabric board, is it easier to use a chessboard, find something to put down to block off the extra row and column, and find something to mark the nine special spaces with - or to draw out a board by hand with pencil and paper? If it's easier to do a one-off scratch than to futz around with blocking off a larger hard board, I'd consider it appropriate for Custom Board. -- FreeTrav 23:47, 6 Mar 2006 (GMT)