''Thin Ice'' is a
board game
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well.
Many board games feature a ...
that was produced in
1989
File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxon Valdez oil tanker ru ...
by the
Pressman Toy Corporation
Pressman Toy Corporation is a toy manufacturer based in Richardson, Texas. Founded in 1922 by Jack Pressman, it currently focuses on family games and licensed products.
History
The company was founded in 1922 by Jack Pressman, who brought in ...
. It was invented by Denise Heimrich and licensed by Robert Fuhrer and Nextoy, LLC. The game features a lower ring with
marbles
A marble is a small spherical object often made from glass, clay, steel, plastic, or agate. They vary in size, and most commonly are about in diameter. These toys can be used for a variety of games called ''marbles'', as well being placed in ma ...
and an upper ring, where a
tissue is placed to emulate thin ice. Marbles sit below in a pool of water. The object of the game is to place as many wet marbles as possible on the tissue with a pair of big plastic
tweezers
Tweezers are small hand tools used for grasping objects too small to be easily handled with the human fingers. Tweezers are thumb-driven forceps most likely derived from tongs used to grab or hold hot objects since the dawn of recorded history ...
included with the game, in which the tweezers were covered by a sticker showing a happy
Eskimo
Eskimo () is an exonym used to refer to two closely related Indigenous peoples: the Inuit (including the Alaska Native IƱupiat, the Greenlandic Inuit, and the Canadian Inuit) and the Yupik (or Yuit) of eastern Siberia and Alaska. A related thi ...
reaching out to "grab" one of the marbles. Eventually, the weight of the marbles will cause the tissue to break and dump the marbles into the lower ring. The player who placed the marble on the ring causing it to break would then have a "strike", and the upper ring would be reset with new tissue and the players would once again place marbles atop it. The first person to break through the "ice" 3 times is the loser.
A 1990 TV commercial for the game used the song ''
Wipe Out'' adding lyrics such as "Place a marble on the ice, but watch out! You are on thin ice, you are on thin ice!"
External links
*
Board games introduced in 1989
Children's board games
Larry Harris (game designer) games
Pressman Toy Corporation games
{{board-game-stub