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Commercial and out of print, but available in download package from Andy Looney's site. The IF version is in icebreak/​ICEMAKER/​PTRO/​ICE.​Z5

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Icebreaker: The Text Adventure

by Andrew Plotkin profile

Adaptation
1996

Web Site

(based on 2 ratings)
1 review

About the Story

Icebreaker is an abstract strategy/action arcade game in which you control a pyramid and you try to destroy all pyramids on a grid while other pyramids stalk you, designed and originally written for the 3DO by Andy Looney (read more about the parent game at Looney Labs).

While working on the PC/Mac port, Andrew 'Zarf' Plotkin wrote a text version in Inform as an exercise. Everyone loved it, and it was included on the disk of Icebreaker as an extra.


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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Only of interest to Zarf completists, June 18, 2015
by Pegbiter (Malmö, Sweden)

Rating this game as interactive fiction is a bit unfair considering its nature. It actually does a pretty good job being a text parser adaption of Icebreaker. Arcade games are however not an interest of mine, and they do not work very well in text format.

With the isometric projection of the original game, the player can quickly get an overview of what is going on. In the text version, the claustrophobic sensation of only knowing what is adjacent to you is somewhat exciting at first. Interpreting all those descriptions of what kind of area is in what direction soon gets tiresome though. There is fortunately only an easily mapped grid of 6 x 6 squares to explore, surrounded by a seemingly endless desert wasteland.

There are only 14 points to score, but winning the game took me longer than necessary since I was unfamiliar with the general mechanics of Icebreaker. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the Wikipedia page before starting. Anyway, I usually play interactive fiction for immersive stories and occasional puzzles. This game has none of those.

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This is version 5 of this page, edited by JTN on 27 December 2022 at 5:10pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page