Icehouse pieces

Icehouse pieces, or icehouse pyramids, Treehouse pieces and official Looney Pyramids, are nestable and stackable pyramid-shaped gaming pieces and a game system. The game system was invented by Andrew Looney and John Cooper in 1987, originally for use in the game of Icehouse.

History

Andrew Looney in 1987 penned a sci-fi short story, "Ice House", that included a game called Icehouse, an ancient Martian game. Readers of the short story requested to learn how to play the game. Thus actual rules were invented for Icehouse, then plastic pyramid pieces were made to play the game. The first commercially available set were solid non-stackable pyramids released in 1989 with only 100 set made. The pieces were made from resin in his apartment which upset the landlord. After several years, Looney shut down Icehouse Games, Inc. and soon started another gaming company, Looney Laboratories, 1996.

Additional games beyond Icehouse were created including Martian Chess, Zendo, and Homeworlds. Looney then created the IceTower game which used stacking pyramids leading to a change in the pyramid pieces' specification for stacking.