Ice Age Adventure Guide

Ice Age Adventures starts with nearly the same premise as the last game. Something bad happens, and all the animals in the Ice Age entourage get separated. Sid "Suffering Succotash" Sloth is charged with rescuing them. Soon he will recruit Manny "Man, Ray Romano is annoying" Mammoth and Diego "Promise you don't date my daughter Gwen" Saber-toothed Tiger, and the three will work together to find more animals.Although the goal of saving lots of animals is the same as in Village, the way you go about doing so differs greatly here. Sid and team actually get to visit new locations via ship, adding an element of exploration that you seldom see in games of this type.When you reach one of these places, you'll find a variety of obstacles to clear, including trees, rocks, ice, enemies, mushrooms, and more. Tap one of these objects and one of your three heroes will clear it out of the way (some take two taps), gaining shells (soft currency) as a reward. Getting rid of stuff consumes berries, which function as energy in Ice Age Adventures. The berry costs get a lot higher as you reach new islands, limiting players' ability to zoom through the game.

 

Each island also hosts several buildings from which you can earn various prizes, including animals, berries, shells, items, and on rare occasions, acorns (premium currency). Simply tap a building and its roulette wheel will spin and then pop out the item. You can revisit buildings to try for better prizes, but they take anywhere from ten minutes to several hours to become active again. This gets annoying when the building has an animal or item you need, because some of them have very low and unfair drop rates. It might take quite a few visits to get that item you're looking for, to the point that it delays progress in the game.You’re tasked from the beginning to save Manny the Mammoth’s lost tribe of various Ice Age era creatures who have been lost at sea via ice floats.  The menagerie consists of White Tigers, Aardvarks, Beavers, and Gazelles for some reason, and roughly one hundred more.In order to rescue all of the happy animal families, you’ll need to take your ice ship to various islands and progress along very basic levels, clearing your way to the mini game sections. Berries, Shells and Acorns, with the latter being the game’s hard currency, all play a role in our rescue efforts. Berries help you clear trees and boulders on the main map. Clearing said boulders earns you shells which you use to build animal habitats and land expansions.

Once an animal is rescued and in its habitat it generates Berries, and thus the circle of life continues. Acorns being premium hard currency are used to buy exclusive animals and expand into dangerous areas to rescue more of the same.  They’re also used to get a second shot at a failed minigame.The minigames are an absolute joy, and I found myself looking forward to cutting a swath through new islands to reach them.  Rescuing animals is done in one of two different ways.  Either you find the wee critter trapped in ice and start a match-three puzzle game to save them, or you find a grotto which starts a slot machine game.  If you’re lucky via the chance game, you then get to start a simple Minion Rush-style race game. Players will experience pretty much every prominent iOS game mechanic of the past few years. There’s match-3 puzzling, infinite running starring someone’s favorite rodent Scrat, light role-playing, and it’s all surrounded by a freemium city-building shell. But it brings these ideas together competently enough to be at least slightly better than the sum of its parts.As Earth continues to thaw, the frozen homes of everyone’s beloved 'Ice Age' movie characters break apart and drift away. So it’s up to Sid the sloth to rescue his friends and rebuild the village. With its bright colors, swell animation, and copious amounts of voice work from familiar faces like Manny and Diego, the game does capture much of the appeal of the animated movies. The characters also do a good job at explaining the various systems while still being entertaining to a younger audience, even if that leaves older fans irritated by the redundancy. The game is separated into two phases.

The more traditional village-building phase has players constructing homes, taking on missions, and managing their various currencies. But the exploration phase is where the real action is. Players unlock over a dozen different islands, from arctic icescapes to dinosaur-filled jungles, and search the land for lost friends and families. They’ll play minigames, find treasure, fight pirates, and solve some simple environmental puzzles like building bridges. These sections almost create the illusion of a real adventure game. Of course, progress is still hamstrung by freemium elements. As the player’s party grows, so too does the number of berries it takes to make any meaningful advancement. But the game never feels entirely exploitative, even when the puzzles give players an absurdly low amount of moves.Ice Age Adventures feels a lot like the franchise it is based on. It’s not up there with Pixar or the better Dream Works movies in terms of quality, but it’s still pleasant enough children’s entertainment. It’s not totally cynical. There’s match-3 puzzling, infinite running starring someone’s favorite rodent Scrat, light role-playing, and it’s all surrounded by a freemium city-building shell. But it brings these ideas together competently enough to be at least slightly better than the sum of its parts.The game is separated into two phases.They’ll play minigames, find treasure, fight pirates, and solve some simple environmental puzzles like building bridges.

These sections almost create the illusion of a real adventure game. Of course, progress is still hamstrung by freemium elements. As the player’s party grows, so too does the number of berries it takes to make any meaningful advancement. But the game never feels entirely exploitative, even when the puzzles give players an absurdly low amount of moves.Although the goal of saving lots of animals is the same as in Village, the way you go about doing so differs greatly here. Sid and team actually get to visit new locations via ship, adding an element of exploration that you seldom see in games of this type.When you reach one of these places, you'll find a variety of obstacles to clear, including trees, rocks, ice, enemies, mushrooms, and more. Tap one of these objects and one of your three heroes will clear it out of the way (some take two taps), gaining shells (soft currency) as a reward. Getting rid of stuff consumes berries, which function as energy in Ice Age Adventures. The berry costs get a lot higher as you reach new islands, limiting players' ability to zoom through the game.Each island also hosts several buildings from which you can earn various prizes, including animals, berries, shells, items, and on rare occasions, acorns (premium currency). Simply tap a building and its roulette wheel will spin and then pop out the item.