We invite you to enjoy a simple, quick-playing, novel, and beautifully produced game that pits Red against Blue. The handsome board's seven triangular islands mark the corners, edges, and center of a larger triangle. Similarly, each island has seven holes. Red begins with a Red peg starting in the middle island's central hole.

Start turns by moving a peg of your color from one hole to another on the same island, or to a corresponding hole on a different island. Then place an opponent's peg in the vacated hole. You control an island by having three of your pegs there in a row, or by occupying all of its edges. If you control three islands in a row on the large triangle (or those on the edges), you win!

Fire and Ice is like Tic-Tac-Toe on crack. Instead of the traditional tic-tac-toe board, Fire and Ice is based on a Fano Plane. In tic-tac-toe, the middle square is more valuable than the rest, in a Fano Plane, no space is more valuable than any other. There are 7 ways to make 3 in-a-row, and no possible way to tie.

The entire board is a set of Fano Planes, each one of them being on a vertex of a larger Fano Plane.

(Does your brain hurt yet?)

In order to control one of the mini-boards, you simply need three- in-a-row (or 3-in-a-circle). In order to win the game, you need to control 3 of the mini-boards in a row (or in a circle). This all makes more sense when you have the board in front of you.

The BIG twist is that you never put your own pieces on the board. On your turn, you move one of your pieces (either to any place on the same island, or to a corresponding place on another island). The place that was vacated gets filled by one of your opponent's pieces.

We've been playing at a lot lately -- it has a great "OK, just one more game!" factor. The game plays fast, and it's tough to see who will win until close to the end.

This game has the simplest of rules, with the deepest of strategy. You'll find something strategically new every time you play.

The board is solid, with felt-lined bins which hold the elegant wooden playing pieces. It is a game that is suitable for display -- some people leave a chessboard out as decoration; Fire and Ice would make a gorgeous addition to any decor.