Iron Game Chef Reviews and Results

[Mike Holmes]

Habakkuk - The Iceberg Ship - Dwayne
Style: Stretches fantasy a bit. Really more of a War/Horror thing with a slightly alternate timeline. Still, it's a very interesting idea that has a feel all it's own that's brought about well by the mechanics.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: hard to say without playing a lot. The mechanics are like My Life With Master to some extent, but more geared towards simply telling the strange tale of the Habakkuk. Player interaction is higher than MLWM, and if they work correctly, the game should produce startlingly effective play in terms of driving hard on the subject material in the narrative.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: the ship is described as more of a floating island.
Ice: what the ship is made of, and potentially the source of a lot of complications.
Dawn: one of the ship destinies, representing the onset of endgame.
Assault: presumably what the island is used for, assaulting the Germans.

Completeness: Quite complete not only to play but in providing a lot of direction. The only quibble is that the cross-genre isn't really that easy to imagine. If it were just horror, or just WWII, then no problem. But being about both and trying to mix them together might require some more notes and perhaps some inspirational footnotes (I keep thinking of the original version of The Thing, for some reason). The only other critique is that replay value of the game is likely zero.

[Mike Holmes]

ICE - Christopher Weeks
Style: There seems to be a mobile aesthetic to the game that's supposed to be conveyed by the mechanics. Somewhat like Sorcerer. While that aesthetic sounds somewhat interesting, I'm not sure that the mechanics will actually produce that aesthetic consistently.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: There are a couple of problems. The main question supposedly asked by play is whether a person can use their Ice well, and not end up an island. The problem is that there's no advantage at all to using the Ice dice over any others. A player can just constantly put them back in the bag, and never have to face the consequences, and can still get exactly what they want. The ice dice allow descriptions to have a "fantasy" tone, but don't otherwise provide any advantage. So I can just use my Social dice to talk the person into helping me out, instead of having to use the ice dice to "charm" them.

The rest of the mechanics are a tad confused in presentation, but represent an interesting resolution concept overall. That said, there's potentially like 20 lead in statements before the referee's output statement. Which seems like a heck of a lot.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: Islandization? Klunky term, but the concept is OK.
Ice: diamonds? The crystalline form of the angels that provides magic power. Ice dice.
Dawn: the dawn of time when the ice was created from the angels, and the state of the ice to which the Guild would like to return the ice.
Assault: not used.

Completeness: Barely complete by letting chargen be completely freeform. There's nothing here really to tell the referee or players how to set up a scene in terms of making the premise come out. As such, the game really needs a lot more before it's even really playable, much less driving.

[Mike Holmes]

IceRunner: a dweomerpunk fantasy setting - John Laviolette
Style: Attempts to bring Cyberpunk sensibilities to a "realistic" fantasy environment. I think that it's a neat idea, but some of the aesthetics seem forced to fit (the magic concept seems to be reminiscent of a game discussed on the design forum). I think revised edition would be improved by using different terms than the ingredient terms. I'm tempted to deduct for the lack of capitalization (my eyes hurt), but I'm not sure if that counts as layout, which I specifically do not count. And some may see it as a viable aesthetic choice.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: The contest system is potentially ingenious (all "unopposed"), but not easy to understand first time through. In general the text needs a thorough editing for clarity, but the ideas are sound. Magic, once understood seems pretty cool.

One technical point is that I can't discern any difference between rolling over points, and applying them at the moment. It seems like a pointless division.

Overall, I can't decide if the gameplay sections will suffice to create the style of game sought. Somewhat preachy about ways to get narrativism out of play, I'm not sure if the system supports that goal. Seems abashed at best, which may have been the goal

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: The "terrain" of the astral plane that sorcerers can create. Nifty concept, but not expanded on at all.
Ice: The central commodity of the game, and used in the title. On the other hand, Ice in cyberpunk refers to security programs, so the analogy is odd.
Dawn: Not used.
Assault: Simply one of the classes.

Completeness: At over 9,000 words, the game isn't missing any crucial elements to be sure. Still, I wonder if the gameplay sections will effectively create an answer to the "What do you do?" question.

[Mike Holmes]

Island at the Dawn of Time - Alexander Cherry
Style: An interesting motif in which the PCs are the first humans creating the world by naming it. The text is too short to really give it any specific feel, however, other than just a grand blank slate.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: the text is hard to extract the rules from, but it seems that there are a few problems. One is that it appears that it's likely that the ice will unmake everyone right off the bat leaving no winner and little play. The guessing game seems to be sort of pointless (why not just roll), and it might allow player collusion. On the other hand maybe that's intentional as part of not allowing things to end up al being unmade?

There's an interesting concept here, but it needs work to be effective.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: the place upon which the first people begin.
Ice: the ice that covers everything from the long night, from which creation must be torn.
Dawn: the game is played at the dawn of time with the first people. Also the first phase of each day/turn.
Assault: not used.

Completeness: even if the mechanics were fixed up, there's another problem in that there's a real question of what the narration will look like. Or will it just be players listing the things that they're making or seeing in order to include them in the narration. Also, mechanically, there's no strategy at all, really, except determining how many things to guess on. Which has a dominant strategy which will soon be determined. So a number of things need to be added to the design to have a completely playable game.

[Mike Holmes]

ISOL - Darcy Burgess
Style: the game solidly establishes the style of the subject matter, which is the juxtaposition of adult comprehension in a world of childhood fantasy.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: the only support for the themes is the story dice. Outside of that, it's up to the players to invent all of the color and situations that lead to the character's redemption. There might be something subtler going on, but I'm not seeing it. Other than that, it's just a very simple resolution mechanic.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: the setting as represented by a piece of paper on the table.
Ice: represented by the Glacier, and the track for it on the sheet.
Dawn: represented by the Horizon, and the track for it on the sheet.
Assault: not used.

Completeness: technically complete, the game's framework is really very much next to nothing to promote the sought after style. It just seems to be missing something that would wrap up all of the mechanics in a more complete cycle or framework.

[Mike Holmes]

Polaris - Ben Lehman
Style: the game goes to some lengths to establish the shivering cold style of a culture living at the pole of their planet, and the strange seasonal effects thereof. The setting notes are very evocative, and maybe even somewhat overdone in tone.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: It's possible that the culture will be so alien that players might not be able to answer questions like why their character is drawn to being a knight. That is, if you don't know what the other options are, how can you make a relativistic choice? The example traits help a lot here, but maybe not quite enough.

More importantly, where's the answer to the "what do you do?" question? I take it that knights fight demons and police, depending on the seasons. But are the PCs a "party"? Are their stories even interconnected? Just as the culture is difficult to envision, the action is difficult, too.

The IIEE is extremely arcane. I think this is both the strength and weakness of the game. If people can commit to understanding it, and dealing with it, I think that, as a resolution engine, it'll be really powerful. I'm just not sure that people will feel the point of all of the rigmarole. What does having the moons say about how things come out? The Byzantine nature will only be appreciated if people "get it." I'm not sure how often that'll happen.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: off hand comment – assuming unused for these purposes.
Ice: Snow Drop City was made of ice. And there was a snow queen. Now the people live in towers of ice in a land of ice, and are plagued by an Ice Maiden. Three PC stats are either Ice, or ice related. Ice, ice, ice, ice, ice.
Dawn: the light that, one way or another, melted Snow Drop City. Representative of Summer. Also a PC stat.
Assault: Mentioned in the setting color a couple of times.

Completeness: Again, some areas are amongst the most through entered. And yet it still doesn't matter to convey the full sense of what play is about, somehow. What about the big questions? What's actually happening with the Mistake? Is some "ragnarok" coming for these people? There seems to be a pressure to do something, but little inspiration as to what.

[Mike Holmes]

Seadog Tuxedo - Jonathan Walton
Style: The game has a silly style that it nails down well without dwelling on it overlong. I'm seeing this as something that I may play with my kids. There's something in me that wants to rebel against the silliness, but it's nothing that I can deduct points for. It skirts the edges of fantasy, but I couldn't classify it any other way. Overall, I give it significant style points for managing to marry an innovative design, and unusual content.  

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: I think that the basic mechanics will work in terms of being able to resolve events. A couple of concerns. There seems to be no limit on how often a player can call out another player other than if they've just swigged. It sounds like this might lead to a lot of challenges flying all about, meaning that it's possible that the only way to get anything done is via Dawnwine.

Now, if the GM is playing all the NPCs, does he get a shotglass for each? If so, then making them all able to avoid challenge is going to get the GM drunk mighty quick, neh? Also, the die system seems unnecessarily complicated.  Why not just roll one die, challenger needing to get higher than the challengee? By two if they're both under the effects of dawnwine? Lastly, who decides if some action violates the Cuteness and Decentness strictures and the like? Big "buck" problems, potentially here and elsewhere.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: Actually portrayed by coasters on a table, and the main terrain of play that interacts mechanically with Ice.
Ice: Actually portrayed by ice cubes, with a mechanic revolving about their melting speeds. Nifty.
Dawn: Could have as easily been Zenithwine or something. Still it's in there and linked to the sun priests.
Assault: Not used.

Completeness: Hard to say. Worth playtesting to find out, however. Basically, can a game that's almost entirely about event structure (with the exception of the one idiom per character) provide enough impetus for players to be creative and come up with a story? I can't deduct any points because I think that it's theoretically complete. Whether it's complete in play is another matter.

[Mike Holmes]

Snow Day! - or Fort Joey Must Fall! - Hans Christian Andersen
Style: Childhood solipsism ala Watterson. Executed well through the mechanics and structure of the game. Who knew when we'd debated the concept of a post-modern RPG that it would be delivered in this format. Everything in the game is evocative of the exact feel of a snow day. At one point the text says, "because snow days are like that." And they are.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: the snowball fight as the solution for consensus is brilliant. It means that you can disagree if you like, but that it ends up sapping your strength.

The structure isn't at all stifling, instead leading to opportunities to play out childish challenges. It doesn't force a certain path, but instead gives options that can lead anywhere the players want, really. The simple resolution system is philosophically complex, and fun to contemplate. With just a few environments set up, the options seem multitudinous. Probably because, for a child, going for cocoa is a momentous event.

One small clarification – if you go for cocoa, shouldn't you get all of your slush points back? I mean it's warm, and you could just refill your thermos over and over until you were fine, right? Or would a kid forget to do that in his eagerness to get back out there?

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: Hawaii? OK.
Ice: Not just the snow, but the ice spikes guarding Ft. Joey that are impenetrable without a cunning plan.
Dawn: when the warm Hawaiian climate returns and melts it all.
Assault: an Assault on Ft. Joey is the main goal the PCs have to accomplish.

Completeness: Definitely a one-shot, but contains everything needed to do it just right. Gold Stars seem to be a tad undefined, but if you just look at them as a score, then they have precisely the right weight of a childhood reward.

[Mike Holmes]

Snow From Korea - Shreyas Sampat
Style: Typical of the author, the text drips style. The aesthetics of the mechanics are very well matched to the subject material. Despite the somewhat obscure reference material, the tone of the game is delivered effectively and consistently. And in an approachable manner, not one overdone or patronizing.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: The game is simple and straightforward. Very geared to Gamism, I worry that there might not be enough meat to engage the players for long (I think that maybe six instead of ten encounters might be a better minimum, especially depending on the number of characters). It seems likely that players will tend to challenge each other with their superior abilities at each opportunity – there doesn't seem to be a downside, and it would be giving up an opportunity not to do so. It would make more sense if there was some potential downside to challenging (besides the chance of losing).

Adding in all of the optional rules would add only slightly to the strategy, but adds a lot to color. I personally wouldn't play without them. Also, even with this extra detail, I'm not seeing too much of the role-playing aspect.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: Refers to one of the three modes of addressing encounters.
Ice: Snow is ice, I guess. Not necessary, however, given the clever use of the other three.
Dawn: Refers to one of the three modes of addressing encounters.
Assault: Refers to one of the three modes of addressing encounters.

Completeness: Very complete for what it attempts to accomplish. Can't be missing anything. That said, again, I'm not sure that it has enough stuff to make even an engaging Gamist game for long, much less supporting a lot of role-playing. Note that even playing this together with it's sister game "Whispers in the Door" I don't think that it adds quite enough. But a very complete game with all of it played together.

[Mike Holmes]

Terminator Line - Role-playing at 1700 kph - James Sterrett
Style: Somehow the game manages to incorporate the speed feel into the normal course of play in terms of the tension. So play doesn't actually occur at speed – but you'll feel the same pressure as though it was. At least that seems to be the idea.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: I think the pressure elements are all there, but there's a huge, gaping problem. The play is supposed to have some moral quandaries posed by it somewhat like Sorcerer (the mechanics are taken directly from it). The problem is that the only question asked for the entire game is, are you willing to do X in order not to die. I think as soon as a player decides to play a machiavellian character, to make it to the end, the tension will all be gone. It'll just be an exercise in rolling to see if he can accomplish the next GM assigned depredation in order to get to the end.

And I think this will be common. After all, the people who you are assaulting, or otherwise screwing are going to die very soon. In a way you're saving their culture. Further, all of the required sacrifices are just stuff. Either these people are going to be leaving soon, and not need the stuff, or they're going to die, and not need the stuff. So it's hard to even see the dilemma. I think at most you're going to see a lot of "you or me" decisions.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: Play is hopping from one island to another.
Ice: not used.
Dawn: the terminator line itself, representing certain death and the end of the game.
Assault: A potential, if unethical way of dealing with locals met.

Completeness: I think that everything that's needed to basically play is present. But I'm also just as sure that the game needs something else in order to make the potential dilemmas come to light. One of the options is the notion that the spirits might be lying. There might be some way to leverage to make the game about beliefs as well as values, and come up with a lot more permutations on the potential themes.

[Mike Holmes]

Terra Australis - Zak Arneston
Style: Sort of a period InSpectres in a way. The game somehow manages to generate a sort of Jules Verne feel in a way, but that's belied by the actual date of 1691. I think there's a neat feel there, but a very thinly provided one. Somehow the mechanics support it for me, but I'm not quite sure why.  

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: I like the structural elements, but I think there are many problems with the mechanisms as they stand. For example, why spend the RP to keep an item or NPC at zero? When they can be bought new to one for the same cost as raising that Item or NPC back to one?

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: the setting is a group of islands. Nice aesthetics use, but hardly necessary.
Ice: Same as Island.
Dawn: Not used.
Assault: Same as Island.

Completeness: Small details need to be filled in. Do the players know the total Mission Points required or are they merely told by the GM when they reach that total? What happens in terms of control when players (inevitably, given the method) tie on successes? What does "succeed" mean in terms of whether or not control of a roll continues to be passed? I mean, if control passes to the player with the most successes, then doesn't that mean that only he gets to go?

Other than that, I think there's enough to play from a mechanical sense.

[Mike Holmes]

The Arabian Nights ON ICE FAMILY SPECTACULAR - Walt Freitag
Style: A wacky multi-layered game, in which the players play ice-skaters telling stories through their art, some of which are stories about telling stories, etc. All in order to, in classic style, prevent the death of Scheherazade. However, it seems as if the Ice-Skating is almost tacked on in order to meet the ingredient list. It's an interesting choice, but the juxtaposition seems almost more distracting than enlightening. Maybe the game would be better without the ice-skating layer?

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: The card play seems somewhat reminiscent of a more complex Once Upon a Time. And it looks like with a good set of cards that you could definitely have a large enough number of permutations that each time you play would be sufficiently different to keep play somewhat fresh. So from that standpoint it seems very effective.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: the Island of Serendib, an example expansion pack
Ice: the game is about skating.
Dawn: the time that the game ends when the timer runs out, and when Scheherazade's fate is determined.
Assault: not used.

Completeness: everything basically needed to play is present (if you assume a card set that would match the quality of the examples). On the other hand, the player has very few choices. And all the choices that they have turn out to have dominant strategies. So, really, the player's only addition to the game in terms of the narration. Given the time constraints, and the otherwise gamist goal of saving Scheherazade, The narration will potentially suffer to get more play out of the way. So, the combination of mechanics as presented needs some work.

[Mike Holmes]

The Battle of the Frozen Waste - the game of tolkienist battle- Eero Tuovinen
Style: I haven't read the Fire and Ice novels, but it seems from what I know of them that these may have been an influence in addition to the explicit Tolkien influence. The system seems like a colorful version of Universalis (and the Judges wonder if they're being pandered to).

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: Took a while to discover meta-conflicts, but when that rule is considered, a lot falls into place – one can see how the fuzzy stuff is all handled. It seems added on late, however, and there are what seem to be older rules about things like voting and the like that seem contradictory.  

The step by step narration and conflict resulting in something like one of those comedy sportz games where the players keep introducing facts that contradict each other seems pretty cool. Especially powerful is how stones that are used to disagree with narration go to the Ambassador, giving strong incentive for players to play well to each other, and to accept narration. In fact, I wonder if it's too powerful, and might make conflicts non-existent. Which would really throw off the balance of play. Why have conflicts when you can be narrating advantage stones?

Given the scope of the game, the sacrifice rule seems very appropriate.

The death rule seems kinda fuzzy. We know when characters are eligible to die, but is it otherwise just the result of some narrated stone? Similarly, the Ambassador healing rule is somewhat unclear – though I'm not sure how necessary it is in any case. The most worrying thing is that the balance of the game might just fall apart in the final battle – it's very hard to tell without actually playing, however.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: not used.
Ice: The land of the ambassador is a frozen waste.
Dawn: The time of preparation for the battle.
Assault: a sample meaning for a stone – not a very strong use as it could easily be replaced by attack.

Completeness: A very complete game. The open mechanics allow definition of anything without being bland. For what sounds like a very short game, it's extremely complete. I'm not sure about the replayabilit, however; even with the suggestions, I think that in the end it's always going to be a desperate battle against impossible odds. Which is a limiting situation.

[Mike Holmes]

The Brotherhood - Eero Tuovinen
Style: Seemingly an especially grim version of D&D, the text doesn't really do a good job of evoking a consistent style (mostly being a negation of other ideas, rather than positive statements). Mechanically, the idea is that you get bonuses for doing things in the grim style, which seems to weakly support narrating in that direction. The Ice mechanic seems to incongruously indicate a somewhat hopeful condition. This may be from a confused reading of the intent of the mechanic, on the other hand. In any case, it doesn't help the style.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: chargen seems interesting, fascinating, even, but there are some odd cases (like the recognition requirements can't always be met). They do, however enforce the goals of play rigorously. One small problem is that players can explore the tavern and environs indefinitely – which could end up being an odd completely secondary game.

Resolution looks at first promising, with the danger and hazards, but then they seem to not be followed up upon. In the initial adjusting of Ice values (+/- 1), it doesn't say which player performs the adjustment. Even more arcane is how one is supposed to keep track of ICE in terms of getting GM OK.

The Ice powers are interesting in and of themselves, including one of the most ingenious resurrection mechanics that I've ever heard of.

The structure of play seems to be pretty stable, and I think that the dungeon crawling will go fine. The real question is whether or not the gamism will produce the sorts of behaviors that are supposed to be promoted. There are some real "prisoner's dilemma" moments amongst the players. The problem is that, as players not experiencing real results, I think that they'll have no problem avoiding the "sellout" pitfall, and will win out in terms of having loads of power. And the theme desired will be absent. If that analysis is true, then the game needs some real fixing before it'll be even a good one-shot.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: not used.
Ice: the magic that comes from the bonds of brotherhood (or from the distance?).
Dawn: the time that the assault occurs, and at which the renewal occurs (every 20 turns).
Assault: the characters assault a dungeon.

Completeness: it could be played through to a conclusion, but probably doesn't provide enough of a gamist challenge to be really interesting. Nor enough oomph in the right places to make for a good narrativist challenge. So it definitely needs some tweaking before it's really complete.

[Mike Holmes]

The Dance and the Dawn - Dev
Style: the game quickly establishes a simultaneously delicate and yet sumptuous feel, even indicating the music to play by. This extends into the mechanics and resolution, and, of course, through the uses of the chess elements. Elements are all handled in conjunction with the clock and waltz motifs (without straining to get them to work, in fact). The whole is extremely evocative of the Victorian fairy tale. Slightly morose or nostalgic, but without becoming either heavy-handedly gothic, nor too flighty.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: It would have to be played to be sure, but I see no reason why gameplay will not be fun and tactically interesting. "nearby" isn't defined, but it's likely that it means adjacent on the board. At first it seems that the game, like others reviewed, doesn't necessarily lead to any role-playing, but a closer look reveals that it's up to the GM to decide what information the Lords give out. This little opening, this one piece of subjectivity, does the game a lot of good. It ensures that it's not just some mechanical dance, but that the players have to be really creative, at least in certain circumstances.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: the fairy setting represented by the chess board.
Ice: the court is that of the Ice queen, and the isles are of ash and ice. More than just flavor, these influence the style of play, the Ice Queen actually being a piece on the board.
Dawn: the hour when the dance ends as the ice reclaims the queen's court.
Assault: Not used.

Completeness: there seems to be something missing about how many tokens a lady can carry (though it could mean that she can only carry one). Other than that, the game is complete from end to end. There could be more to inspire more angles of play, but I think that the game accomplishes what it sets out to do in terms of scope very well.