Ice Cool is a game developed by Brain Games that has all of the bottle flipping kids excited to play. Both my boys can be found flipping bottles, trying to make soccer trick shots, throw curveballs and throw that crumbled up piece of paper into a waste basket around the corner. This dexterity based game of Ice Cool is right up their alley and they had a fun time with the weighted penguins. Take a look at the rules below:
Ice Cool is a children’s game for 2 to 4 players ages 6 and up and takes approximately 30 minutes to play. It takes you to an undisclosed penguin school, where rascal penguins have decided to skip class and sneak some fish. But not so fast – the hall monitor is on their tails! The idea is to catch a fish or a penguin. The winner is the player with the most points on their fish cards. The special method of flicking penguins creates a whole new bag of tricks – players can make the penguin pieces slide, curve and jump, as you can see in the video. Another innovation is the new ‘box-in-a-box’ board concept that allows creating an immersive 3D game board in a minute.
These weighted penguins (which remind me a bit of a smaller Weeble) make for some interesting control while trying to catch fish or escape the hall monitor. After the first few games, the we all got a little better at control and jumping walls and the occasional two door move were possible. This also leads to some interesting strategy because as everyone gets better the game becomes not just about getting the fish, but also making it so the hall monitor can’t get you on his move also. That being said, the six-year-old sister had a great time and made the occasional lucky trick shot as well. You really can play this game with all of your family members that may have a different level of dexterity and skills, but once you get everyone standing up from their chairs to get the best angle on their shot you will realize how much fun is being had. The fact that everyone gets a turn at hall monitor means that you will have the opportunity to put those other players in their place for all of the nice shots that they had.
To put the finishing touches on a wonderfully designed game, the boxes actually form the board and it makes for easy cleanup as everything fits in a perfect board game sized package. Ice Cool is one of those games that is near perfect in fun and execution for the whole family. I remember this one time when I cleared three rooms in one shot…well maybe not, but one can always dream for the perfect penguin shot and that is what keeps you coming back for more.
Ice Cool by Brain Games has also won many different awards including: UK Games Expo Award 2016 as the Best Children’s Game 2016, Silver Award in the Game Expo Player Award category at the Imagination Gaming Family & Education Games Awards 2016, 2016 Game Of The Year Award in the Kids Action Games category at Creative Child Awards, Major Fun Award, Selected among TOP 100 Best Children’s Products and among Top 10 Best Games within Dr. Toy’s 100 Best Children’s Products Award Program for 2016 among others.
Take a look at some of the Ice Cool gameplay below in the video from Brain Games. You will need some skill to play and win this game, but sometimes it really is about the fun being had and all generations will have a great time flicking their penguins. As a family game there was a lot of laughing, a lot of fun and some “Oh Wow, Nice Shot” moments to be had while playing.
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