Bad Ice-Cream Game

Bad Ice-Cream is a maze game from Nitrome, first released in December 2010. You control an ice-cream character clearing a grid-based level of fruit while a handful of enemies — melting ice-pops, fire creatures, and Nitrome regulars — patrol the same space and give chase the moment they spot you.

The hook is the ice-block mechanic, borrowed loosely from Bomberman: you never fight anything directly, you outmaneuver it by building and breaking walls of ice on the fly. Trap a chaser in a dead end, break a wall a moment before it corners you, or carve a shortcut straight to the last piece of fruit — the same tool covers offense, defense, and pathing depending on how you use it.

Controls

Move with the arrow keys. Press the spacebar to breathe out a straight line of ice blocks in front of you — press it again next to a block you have already placed to break it instead of creating a new one.

Tips

• Time it, don't pre-place: break a block right as an enemy reaches it rather than well in advance — walls placed too early just give enemies room to route around them.
• Leave yourself an exit: ice blocks trap you as easily as an enemy, so check you have a way out before sealing off a section of the maze.
• Trap instead of dodge: you don't need to outrun anything — boxing an enemy in behind ice is often safer than trying to slip past it.

Bad Ice-Cream went on to spawn two full sequels, Bad Ice-Cream 2 and Bad Ice-Cream 3, but the original still holds up as a quick, replayable maze puzzler for anyone who wants a bit more strategy than a straight runner or platformer.