Equipment:

• 2 stashes of stackable Icehouse pieces
• 2 dice
• 2 players
• an imaginary gameboard featuring a 4x5 grid of 1" squares

Setup

Begin by stacking up all of the pieces into "trees", these being towers consisting of a Pawn atop a Drone atop a Queen. Now push these towers together into two lines of five, with the two colors alternating as shown in the above photo. Finally, move the first Pawn off of the tower nearest the Exit Portal for each player, then roll the dice to see who goes first.

Routes of Movement

This game doesn't require a gameboard, but it helps if you visualize one, as shown in these illustrations, which depicts the pathways you'll be moving pieces along during this game. The first diagram shows where your pieces go and where you want to move them; your opponent will be doing the same thing on the other side, with your opposing pathways interweaving, as shown in the second diagram.

Moving your Pieces

Your pieces are all waiting in line, in teams of three, in a long hallway with a U-turn in the middle. Your goal is to move all of your pieces out through the Exit Portal at one end, following after your first piece. However, pieces can only leave through the Exit Portal in a sequence that causes them to stack into "nests", these being the opposite of Trees, i.e. stacks consisting of a Queen atop a Drone atop a Pawn. Also, when your pieces move forwards (or backwards) through the hallway, they can only stop when landing atop a piece of the same color which is of the same size or larger.

Rolling the Dice

On your turn, roll the two dice. You get to move one piece one space for each pip you roll on the dice. You must use all of your movement pips.

Whenever you roll doubles, it counts as triples.

When rolling, be careful not to let your dice crash into the game pieces.

Stepping on Singletons

When possible, you want to keep your pieces together in teams as they wait in the hallway. If you leave a solitary piece unattended (ie with no other pieces on or under it) and your opponent lands on that piece, it gets moved to the Re-Entry Point, a spot opposite your Exit Portal, at the other end of the Hallway. When stepping on another player, you can continue moving the piece, or you can leave it in the newly-emptied location.

Sliding Down the Stockpile

As your pieces move out through the Exit Portal, they must arrive in a sequence that causes them to stack into a Nest. When a fresh Pawn moves out through the Exit Portal, slide the last completed Nest down one "space", pushing any others ahead of it, to make room for the assembly of the next Nest. Sliding your collection of finished Nests along in this way will help remind both players of the boundaries of the board, which can become non-obvious as the hallways empty out.

Note: Don't slide a finished Nest out of the Exit Portal until the next Pawn is actually arriving.

Winning

The winner is whichever player gets all 15 pieces through the Exit Portal first. In this photo, green is about to win.

Credits

Designer: Kristin
Playtesters: Andy and Alison
Rules and pictures: Andy