Rulebooks/Ice
Rulebook 05 · Tap puzzle
How to play an ice game
A tap puzzle on a frozen pond. The board is a wall of coloured ice blocks with a small penguin perched somewhere inside it. You clear blocks by tapping a group of two or more of the same colour, and the blocks above settle down into the gaps. The goal is to open a path so the penguin can reach the water at the bottom — using as few taps as you can.
- Game type
- Casual tap-to-clear logic puzzle, single player
- One board
- Thirty seconds to two minutes, untimed
- Input
- Tap a connected group of same-colour blocks to remove it
- Attention
- Light planning; the board only changes when you tap
- Progress
- Boards cleared and taps used, shown in-game only
What is on the screen
The board is a grid of coloured ice blocks. A penguin sits somewhere among them, and open water runs along the bottom edge. Below the board a tap counter keeps count. When you tap a connected group of matching blocks they clear, and every block above them slides straight down to fill the space — which quietly rearranges what is next to what, and therefore which groups exist for your next tap.
Only groups count: a block with no same-colour neighbour cannot be tapped and just sits there. So the board is really a sequence of choices about which group to remove first, since each removal reshapes the ones that follow.
Clearing a board from scratch
Seven steps, in the order the game presents them.
- 1
Find the penguin and the water below it
Before tapping, locate the penguin and trace roughly downward to the water. That line is the path you are trying to open; blocks off to the sides only matter if clearing them helps the penguin drop.
- 2
Tap a group of two or more
Tap any connected run of the same colour and it clears. A single block on its own is inert — if nothing happens when you tap, it had no matching neighbour and you need a different group.
- 3
Watch the board settle after each tap
When a group clears, the blocks above drop down. Let that settle before choosing again, because two colours that were not touching a moment ago may now form a group, and one you were planning to tap may have broken up.
- 4
Clear from under the penguin
The penguin drops as the blocks beneath it are removed. Work the column under it rather than the edges, so each tap actually lowers the penguin toward the water instead of just tidying a corner.
- 5
Take the big groups early
Large groups change the board the most when they clear and settle, so removing them first tends to open up new matches for free. Small two-block groups are better saved for fine adjustments near the end.
- 6
Try not to strand a lone block
A single block with no matching neighbour cannot be removed, so avoid clearing around one and leaving it marooned on a ledge under the penguin. If you do, look for a group above it whose drop will give it a neighbour again.
- 7
Reach the water to solve
Once the path is open and the penguin slides into the water, the board is solved and the next one loads. Nothing carries over except which boards you have cleared and your best tap counts.
Controls
| Input | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tap a group | Removes a connected run of two or more same-colour blocks. |
| Tap a lone block | Does nothing; a block with no matching neighbour cannot be cleared. |
| Undo | Steps back your last tap, before the settle is built on. Unlimited on most builds. |
| Reset | Returns the board to its opening layout to try a different order. |
| Melt | Removes one lone block as a rare, optional help on some builds. |
What a session feels like
Pacing
Gentle and bite-size. Nothing moves until you tap, so a board is a handful of unhurried choices with a small, clear finish. It is a good one-board-at-a-time game — easy to open for a minute, and it never penalises you for setting it down mid-board.
Because each board is self-contained and untimed, there is nothing to protect between boards. A board you cannot open simply resets to its starting layout, so a wrong order costs only another look.
Pointers for a first hour
- Clear under the penguin, not the edges. Only the blocks beneath it lower it toward the water; side-tidying wastes taps.
- Big groups first. The largest groups reshape the board most when they settle, often handing you fresh matches for nothing.
- Watch the settle before tapping again. The board rearranges after every clear; plan on what is there now, not what was.
- Avoid stranding lone blocks. A single block cannot be tapped, so try not to leave one marooned in the penguin's path.
- Undo is free. If a tap breaks up a group you wanted, step it back and take them in a better order.
- Taps, not time, are the budget. There is no clock; the only thing to spend carefully is the number of taps.
Quick Play Notes is a reference site. This page describes a tap-to-clear ice puzzle from our own play; the tap counter it mentions is a display number inside the game and means nothing outside it. We have no commercial relationship with any game's publisher, and the game is named solely to identify what this page explains.