iSpraker: It’s just not the same.

iSpraker. Say it out loud. Get it now? This generic, iPhone version of “Don’t Break the Ice” does a lot of things right. Unfortunately, it’s just not the same.

There is a nostalgia factor at play here. Who didn’t love to pull out the little plastic mallet and punch out fake ice cubes, hoping desperately to avoid making the man-in-the-middle fall to his death? I loved the original “Don’t Break the Ice” board game. It sure as hell beat Monopoly (and its four-hour game time).

iSpraker tries as hard as it can to replicate the gameplay of the original. You are presented with a game board of ice blocks with a marmot-man in the middle. Players use their fingers to knock out a single piece of ice in turn. The goal, then, is to keep the little creature alive. If your cube removal makes him fall, you lose.

The game design is simple but adequate. You can play with up to four players, and they can be any combination of humans and computers. There’s no music and only simple sound effects…a drawback to some, but I like to keep my games as un-annoying as possible.

One of the best touches, though, is the occasional slogan-like sayings that pop up during the game, drawing attention to the developer’s conscious attempt to avoid copyright infringement. Sentences like “Don’t Break the Frozen Water!” and “You’re walking on thin stuff!” are cute, cheeky and funny. They do, however, pop up after every turn and can end up being a little annoying.

Overall, though, they did a pretty decent job porting this simple game over. But I can’t recommend it, and the reason is simple. Nothing is left to chance.

The physics engine assumes perfect taps every time, and, as such, deciding which ice blocks to remove is a simple matter of deductive logic. This gets a little boring. What was fun about the original game was the fact that the more blocks you removed, the tighter the blocks got and the more difficult it was to tap the next block out without making the whole thing crash down. There was a sense of chance and a physics to it that an iPhone game simply can’t replicate. Instead of being a fun, goofy skill game, this becomes more akin to a game of chess. And it just isn’t the same.

It costs $1.99 on the iTunes store. Were it $0.99, I could totally understand downloading this one for a laugh, and I’ve seen much worse games in the two dollar range. It’s a personal call.

You can but iSpraker HERE.

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