Icehouse (game)

Icehouse is the original game played with Icehouse pieces, also called Looney Pyramids, a set of nestable and stackable pyramid shaped playing pieces invented by Andrew Looney and John Cooper in 1987. The pieces are four sided pyramids marked at the base with a value from one to three, and a standard set holds fifteen pyramids of one color, five in each of three sizes, so that pieces can be nested inside one another for storage or stacked point to base during play. The first commercial sets appeared in 1989 as solid, non stackable pyramids, and Looney Labs took over production and introduced the stackable version in 1996. In the game of Icehouse itself, players use their stacks of pyramids to build and defend territory on a shared playing surface, claiming space and capturing opposing stacks under certain conditions. The same pyramid sets went on to support a wide family of other abstract strategy games, most needing at least two colors of pieces and some adding equipment such as glass stones or a chessboard.