Ice Tumble Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Ice Tumble, a family weight board game published by Simply Fun. Ice Tumble is designed by Reiner Knizia and tasks players with building a tower out of polyomino-shaped blocks.

Dr. Reiner Knizia is probably one of the most well-known game designers in the tabletop space. Since the early 90s, he’s published over 600 board games! These include award-winning games such as Modern Art, The Quest for El Dorado, and High Society. Yet not every one of his titles is a brain-burning euro. Today, we are going to look into a family weight dexterity game of his called Ice Tumble. Published by Simply Fun, Ice Tumble accommodates 2-4 players and takes about 15 minutes to play.

To start, a bunch of polyomino-shaped blocks are piled in the middle of the table. Players take turns rolling a 6-sided die and based on the results, take 1-2 blocks from the center, or 1 from an opponent. If any of the blocks move while claiming them from the pile, you must take a second block as a penalty. Once all the blocks are taken, players move on to phase 2.

In this phase, players will again roll the 6-sided die and resolve the result. This will be either stacking 1 or 2 blocks on the tower or giving a block to an opponent. If the tower ever tumbles, the fallen pieces are put back in the box and the player takes 2 of the blocks as a penalty. The game ends once a player has placed their last block and put their player pawn on top of the tower.

Despite the pedigree of the designer, Ice Tumble is a fairly light game. The main thing that sets it apart from other stacking games of this genre is the claiming of blocks at the start and the rolling of the die. Yet, ironically, those are the two least impressive parts of the game.

While I was fine with