Looney Labs Xeno Treehouse

Icehouse peices, to be described as a deck of cards, as in playing cards are not a game unto themselves but a way to play hundreds of games with them, is a great cool looking system that is as yet not terribly well known.In a normal set of Icehouse peices you get 5 stashes of Pyramids. They are like those little russian nesting dolls, with a bigger over a larger over a larger, they all fit inside. Small medium and Large pyramid, so with 5 stashes with 3 pieces to a stash, that's 15 playing peices. They are each a different color (to have a full set you evidentally need 5 of each color, which is to say buy 5 tubes of Icehouse peices, but i'll be sticking to the two I got) and each size has a number of dots corrisponding to it's value, which is intrinsically obvious anyway, small is 1 medium is 2 and large is 3.The set comes with the rules to play a simple but engaging game called Treehouse, wich is fun and utilizes the included 6 sided custom die. But there are tons of games to play, all of wich rules can be found online. Of course there are booklets or pamphlets for various games utilizing anywhere from 1 to 5 full tubes of Icehouse, which can be purchased from looney labs. However an enterprizing individual doesnt have to look very hard to find them online.The pieces are clear plastic, strong, and stack nicely, and make for a very unique kind of game play that just looks cool on your table top. I printed a custom "Martian Chess" board, for which I bought this set in particular, and have played on a normal chess board some other very similar games to what you know but unique and utilizing the stacking system they pyramids allow.Basically, if you like games, and want to have a new "deck of cards" and dont mind looking up some rules or buying the preprinted pamphlets, this is a wonderful thing to buy. I'd suggest getting at least 2 sets though, in my case the Rainbow set of colors and the Xeno set of colors, so I have a total of 10 unique color stashes of pyramids.

Looney Labs stopped selling individual stashes of their Icehouse pieces and are now bundling them in this way. You'll have to buy five to get the appropriate quantity of stashes (or play 1% of the games using a single Treehouse set). It's well worth the money if you're into abstracts, though you'll initially feel like you're overpaying for molded plastic you could ALMOST replicate yourself.I've played about 20 different Icehouse games at this point, over the last few months, my personal favorites being Volcano (which, sadly, takes more stashes than the Xeno pieces provide), Synapse Ice, Zendo, Armada, and Pikemen. Hundreds to go.