When comparing A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) vs Ice Cool, the Slant community recommends A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) for most people. In the question“What are the best board games?” A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) is ranked 11th while Ice Cool is ranked 37th. The most important reason people chose A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) is:
Like Risk, but with more planned strategy in stead of luck by throwing dice. Tactics are planned out ahead of time (instead of turn by turn in Risk) and then they are laid out turn by turn depending on placement.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Excellent game design
Like Risk, but with more planned strategy in stead of luck by throwing dice. Tactics are planned out ahead of time (instead of turn by turn in Risk) and then they are laid out turn by turn depending on placement.
Pro Nerve-racking
The game is extremely intense. Shouldn't be played on an empty stomach!
Pro Good replayability
Every time it is different, more or less players matters a lot in the gameplay which effects how the game plays each time.
Pro Often leads to memorable moments
The game can lead to some awesome moments because of the little penguins. Depending on where you hit the penguin, it will move differently. For example, if you flick the head of it, it will make the penguin jump. This can lead to some crazy trick-shots where someone manages to jump over walls. You can also flick them on the side, which will make the penguin spin. By doing this you could spin through multiple rooms and gather a lot of points or catch several penguins on the same turn.
Pro Easy to set up
The gameboard of Ice Cool is big, but it’s quite simple to set up. The playing surface consists of five boxes that all fit in the game’s box. You connect them in the correct places, all of which are marked with colored dots on the edges of the boxes. After that you take the little beige colored fish tokens and place them in the marked spots to keep the gameboard in place, and you’re good to go.
Pro Easy to learn
Ice Cool is very straightforward, it all revolves around flicking little penguin pawns. Doorways will have fish pegs attached to them, when you flick a penguin through it, then you’ll receive the fish and get to draw a fish card that gives you victory points. Each round one player will be the hall monitor who will try to catch other penguins and gather their student ID’s by hitting them instead of gathering fish.
The round ends either when the hall monitor has gathered all ID’s or when someone has gathered all three fish tokens. The game ends when everyone has been the hall monitor. The player with the most points on their fish cards wins.
Pro Beautiful design
Aesthetically Ice Cool looks very impressive. The playing surface is a 3D school consisting of five different rooms that feature many little details all over the walls – maps, fish, basketball hoops, etc. Everything has a blue, cold-looking color scheme, which kind of mimics an igloo.
The cards also have some great artwork on them. The ID’s are two-sided for boys and girls. Each colored penguin has a different look and style. The fish cards depict, you guessed it, fish. The bigger the point value, the bigger the meal.
Pro High quality components
The components of Ice Cool are very interesting and well-made. The game’s playing surface is made of five 3D boxes that all fit in the game’s box. The player tokens are four penguins made of hard plastic that are weighted in the base so that they keep wobbling when hit. Throughout the game players gather fish tokens, which are nice and small wooden pieces similar to pegs. There are also some cards in the game – ID cards and fish cards, which are all made of durable cardstock.
Cons
Con Takes a long time to learn and play
The gameplay is very deep and interesting, but it involves a lot of mechanics and rules. You only have a certain amount of action tokens, and you can't always use the more powerful actions (you need to be a certain rank on the track), and there's a bunch of other things you need to think about constantly. There are tons of little mechanics you need to learn first before you can actually enjoy the game (and that will probably take a playthrough or 2, which is about 5 hours...especially if you're reading the rulebook).
Con Flares can be fustrating
As one of your action tokens, you can use a flare, which interrupts another action token of an opposing player. While useful, they do nothing besides slow down the game (for example, if the Lannisters keep flaring the Greyjoy's ships then they're stuck where they are and the Greyjoys can't do anything about it, essentially rendering them useless).
Con Has a learning curve
Ice Cool is quite skill-based and requires practice on flicking the penguin pawns to get them to go where you want to. The rulebook has some tips, but the techniques can only be learned by playing the game. A new player won’t do well against a player who has already played a bit.
Con Luck-based scoring
Catching penguins and gathering fish to get victory points in Ice Cool requires skill, but the values on the fish cards you get range from 1 to 3, which means that even if you’re good at the game, you can lose because of pure chance. Someone could potentially score the same amount out of one card as you with three cards.
Con Only one layout
The gameboard can only be arranged in one way, so the game can get quite repetitive in this aspect.