How to play
The pond is covered in sixty ice floes, each with one, two or three fish. Each player has ducks: four each with two players, three with three, two with four.
Placing: take turns putting one duck at a time on any floe with one fish, until every duck is down.
Sliding: on your turn, slide one of your ducks any distance in a straight line, in any of the six directions. It can’t cross a gap where a floe has melted, or slide through another duck. The floe it left melts away, and you keep its fish.
If none of your ducks can move, you sit out. When nobody can move, everyone also keeps the floes their ducks are standing on. Most fish wins; a tie goes to whoever took more floes.
Tips
Every move shrinks the pond, so think about space as much as fish. Try to claim a corner of floes that only your ducks can reach, and cut your rivals off from the rich floes by melting the way in. A duck on a lonely floe is stuck for good.