Mutant Meeples on Ice - Walkthrough

Designed by Ivan Wang, Justin Yokota, and Margaret Sands
Artwork by Rachel Wei
Implemented by Ivan Wang

Inspired by:

Pokémon

Mutant Meeples

Don’t Break the Ice

View Team Stats View Game Stats Back to Playmate

This puzzle game is a standard "sliding ice puzzle". Each turn, a Meeple is allowed to select a direction, and slides in that direction until it meets a wall, an ice block, or another Meeple. The goal of each level is to make a Meeple land on the target. Simply sliding past is insufficient.

In addition to walls, two other tile types exist: Ice blocks, which act as 4-direction walls, and Water tiles, which drown most Meeples crossing them and force the move to be reset.

After each level, one of the six Meeples gains a special power:

Level	Pokémon	Move	Description	Video Walkthrough
1	N/A	N/A	All Meeples have standard ice-sliding moves.	View on YouTube
2	Charmander	Flamethrower	When used, it removes an adjacent ice block. This does not work through walls.	View on YouTube
3	Ekans	Wrap	This lets Ekans "wrap" around the edge of the map. This is a forced move; Ekans will wrap if given the opportunity.	View on YouTube
4	Lapras	Surf	This lets Lapras slide over water tiles instead of drowning.	View on YouTube
5	Machamp	Strength	Using this when adjacent to an ice block pushes it in that direction, moving until it hits a wall. If an ice block runs into a water tile, it fills the water tile, destroying the ice block in the process.	View on YouTube
6	Magikarp	Splash	This allows Magikarp to jump over the first wall it passes. This is a forced move; Magikarp always jumps the first wall. Magikarp cannot jump ice blocks or other Meeples. Magikarp cannot jump a wall if it starts directly adjacent to the wall.	View on YouTube
7	Ditto	Transform	This allows Ditto to copy the ability of exactly one adjacent Meeple. This works through walls, unlike other abilities. If multiple Meeples are adjacent to Ditto, it uses whichever action affects its move first (see Author's Notes).	View on YouTube
8	All	All	This level is the culmination of the game, and uses every power heavily.	Solution 1 Solution 2

Author's Notes

This game is a natural combination of the ice-sliding puzzles featured in many Pokemon games and Mutant Meeples (or its cousin board game,Ricochet Robots). While a few of the mechanics were borrowed straight from Mutant Meeples (Ekans’ wrap, Magikarp’s splash), we made up the rest to be thematic to existing Pokemon moves and the ice theme.

We had a long discussion about whether to include the final level 8 in the game. While we felt it was a fair cumulative test of the different mechanics, the Magikarp escort quest was extremely long compared to other Playmate games.

This game shipped with two glitches that we never had time to debug:

In Level 5, it’s possible to clear a row or column of tiles and send Ekans into an infinite loop. We had hoped to insert a fun easter egg, but did not have time.
The sub-50 score teams found throughout the hunt resulted from an unintended glitch in which Ditto could gain powers from Ekans and Lapras simultaneously. While this was not part of the initial design (only the first transform should be used), we’re happy that teams spent enough time to optimize "glitch%", much like speedrunners do with exploits.

Credits

Background Music: Shota Kageyama - Winding Woods (from Pokemon X & Y)
Sound Effects: Pokemon Sun & Moon, https://www.bfxr.net/