Don't Break the Ice

This is a great game for kids age 3 and up. My 3 year old and 6 year old grandchildren both love playing this. The younger child holds the hammer head so he has more strength to break the ice. The 6 year old can do it by holding the handle of the hammer. As long as they can break the ice, it is fun. They learn to win and they learn to lose. The 3 year has a hard time losing so we decided that the winner has to give the loser a hug so he or she doesn't cry. That works most of the time. And, it is easy to set up over and over again so everybody wins sometime.

Don't Break the Ice was one of the few board game-type games I had when I was younger, and I always had fun playing it. My daughter was interested in the game when I showed her the box, thinking it was funny how you lose if the bear crashes through the ice on your turn. I ordered the game and once it got here, she couldn't wait to play it. We ended up playing 5 rounds in less than 15 minutes- she couldn't wait to play again! I was having fun too, and it's crazy how the little bear manages to stay standing when you smash away the majority of the ice. If you haven't played the game, it's really simple (you can completely ignore the instructions, trust me). You snap the two blue tray halves together, then squeeze all the blocks of ice in it. There are a bunch of small blocks of ice, and one big 4x4 block, which is used to hold the little red bear figure. Typically, this big piece goes in the middle of the tray, but you can put it wherever you want. Once everything's in, flip the tray up and you and another player take turns smashing blocks of ice out with the little hammers until the bear falls. Whoever makes him fall loses. As I mentioned, there are many times when I was about to go "ooh, I win!" when playing because it looked like the bear had no chance of standing up when a certain block would be knocked out, only to see him hold his ground. The ice blocks are held in very tightly when you get them all in, so there's nearly no chance of him falling by accident or the big square falling out. I have to warn potential buyers that this game is a bit flimsy- the tray could easily snap if you apply too much pressure when putting it together, so don't rush anything and you'll be fine. I also give the game 4 stars for educational value because it can teach your kids tactics and seeing that if you knock x block out, x blocks will go down with it because nothing will hold them in place any more. Don't Break the Ice is a great game for a very fair price. It's good to see that a classic from my childhood is still fun to play over 20 years later.

If you are familiar with the classic version of Don't Break the Ice, then you do not need to read past the first paragraph because I will just point out the differences. If you are not familiar, then you don't know what you missed... There are two main differences between this and the classic version. First, the frame comes in two pieces which makes the box much smaller for storage but makes the frame itself a bit flimsier. Still, it is nice to be able to take the thing apart. It cuts the size of the box in half for storage. The other difference is that in the past the center block was a random man staying still on the ice trying to keep his composure as giant mallets fell from the sky. Well, this has been replaced by some abomination of my childhood game playing. Now it looks like the Slush Puppy bear on skates. I suppose old ice guy drowned or something, but the knew guy has one leg in the air and does not stay put. He sometimes just falls over when you are tapping the thing. It is not the same game. It was never all that great, but this changes knocks it down a whole star. Boo. If you have never played Don't Break the Ice, the object is to try to make a game last more than two minutes, which is unlikely. After spending several minutes putting plastic cubes of "ice" into a frame, each player takes a turn using a flimsy plastic mallet to knock out only one ice block at a time. The person who knocks down a 2x2 block of ice with some skating bear-dog-yeti thing on it is the one who loses. There are several strategies out there that are equally likely to not be all that entertaining including the bash like crazy strategy, the engineer who takes 20 minutes to take a turn strategy, and the "maybe I can make this thing float with my mind" strategy. Either way, the actual playtime on a given round is almost always shorter than the time spent setting up. My kid is able to help me set it up now, but I have to do some of the later pieces. It is an okay game for nostalgia purposes, but if you have not played then seriously, don't start now. Pick a new game and stay away from this one. Kids, however, will love it.

When I learned that "Don't Break the Ice" is still available, I thought that my four year old grandaughter would be the right age for it about now. Our grown children, including her mother, used to enjoy this game when they were small. I ordered it through Amazon to avoid running from store-to-store to find it before Christmas. The four year old immediately LOVED the game, as did her two year old sister who cheered when the man fell off the ice. The now-grown aunts and uncles still enjoy the game, as do the mom and grandparents. The old strategies all came back the moment the game was unwrapped. The pieces do fit a bit tightly into the frame as it is still new, and the little man is more difficult to sit onto the ice than before. Also, the set-up game can't be put away in the box as with the older version. There is an extra piece included in case one is lost. This game is still well worth the price for hours of entertainment.

This is my second Break the Ice game. The first one lasted almost 5 years before a tab broke making it impossible to keep the ice cubes in place. When the kids were ages 3 & 4 and I had to help them get the ice cubes in. That was annoying because they wanted to play with it so often! By age 5 no help was needed. We adjust the rules a bit regarding number of taps when the kids were little. Now each player gets to tap on one ice cube till it falls out. That is also an adaptation of the rules but fits the enthusiasm of the players. Note - I still need to help them pull the frame apart when it is time to put the game away.

Super fun classic game. But the level of quality in today's manufacturing of this game is not so great. For example, my game had these problems: - The two parts of the base don't fit together very well - 3 of the springs that hold the ice blocks in place were bent such that they barely hold the ice in place - The polar bear does not fit well into her ice block - she is difficult to get to stand up and falls over easily I'm guessing they've cut corners over the years to keep/bring the price down. And in 2013 the quality is suffering noticeably. It's still fun, but the plastic is so cheap that it barely works as intended.

I am a special education teacher and I regularly buy this toy for my students. It is actually a great game. Children from 2.5 until 6 years really love it. The only complain that I have they never want to finish the game and I have to play with them until I say no moreee. It is also great to teach young learners how to take turns and wait for their turns. Another plus teaching the concepts "Loosing-Winning"

My 2 year old son loves this game! He gets it out everyday and brings it to me and says "want to play?" Of course I have to help him set it up and it takes him 3 seconds to break all the ice. He gets so excited and still thinks the object of the game is to knock the man down first and destroy the rest of the ice as fast as you can. This is the second one I have had to buy. My older daughter broke the mallets in half on our first one and the notches on the part that hold the game together broke as well. We did have the first one for a couple of years though. It's a really fun game.