Icehouse Pyramid Games and Tools

Icehouse pieces, a.k.a. Looney pyramids, are stackable pyramids of three sizes and many colors, invented by John Cooper and Andrew Looney for the game Icehouse.

Rules and Tools

I’ve put together some rules summaries, randomizers and scoresheets for pyramid games:

• Zoning Out Randomizer, randomizes the random special rules for this Sprawlopolis-like game as well as the three draw bags, and includes a scoresheet and rules summary.
• a Pyramid Randomizer based on the code I wrote to randomize the draw bags for Zoning Out.
• Dectana Deciphered includes a player aid for this Zarcana-like game similar to the official one, but with more pretty pictures.

Geeklists

I’ve compiled some pyramid geeklists for reference:

• Pyramid Arcade Games, games in the Pyramid Arcade, the Quartet, or the Sandships mailing.
• Pyramid Arcade Extra Games, the 22 extra games not included in the box, plus the 6 fan favorites not included in the 22 extras.
• The Arcana, my history and taxonomy of Zarcana-like games.
• Am I a Starship Captain?, my Starship Captain list, such as it is.

My Games

I’ve half-designed a few pyramid games based on other games, mostly as an intellectual exercise. They have not yet been fully playtested.

Darcana

Darcana is a reimplementation of Dectana with more Gnostica, less Zarcana, and a solo/automata mode. It’s still under development, as they say at the pyramid games wiki.

Deck Town

Deck Town is based on Zark City, a Zarcana for the rest of us by Andrew Looney. I devised it in order to work my way up to actually playing Dectana (after having merely deciphered it).

Hexcana

Hexcana is Zarcana played on a hex grid. All rules are the same, except that there are six orthogonal directions, and the opening layout should consist of seven cards in a hex formation. Ideally you would use hexagonal tarot cards for the purpose, but round ones are more readily available. See the blog for more details.

Jacynth City

Jacynth City is also based on Zark City, a Zarcana for the rest of us by Andrew Looney, as well as the Decktet classic Jacynth by P.D. Magnus, I devised it after a discussion on my geeklist of Zarcana-type games.

Somids

Somids is a variant of Nomids designed for my pyramid-hungry toddler who refuses to shed.