Talk:Ice

Artificial ice rinks should be in scope

I disagree with saying artificial ice for a sport is not in scope for a page about video game ice. This article is covering the slippy slidey stuff that loosens the controls, an ice gaming staple even in ice hockey games. There may be no point of reference for non-ice controls in those games, but at that point the same can be levied at Bobsled Run, a minigame from Mario Party that is covered. It should be okay to say,

"Ice Hockey as a sport definitionally involves ice rinks, which similarly affects how player characters can move around. Additionally, the nature of these games having locations that are not normally ice rinks means that ice can appear in locations where it would otherwise be abnormal, like Bowser's Castle in Dream Ice Hockey." (List of games)

Then go on and on with curling (defining part of sport) and short track (basically Mario Kart but it's ice all the time) and somesuch. Okay, speed skating and figure skating actually probably doesn't count because we're defining this as the slippy slidey video game stuff and free movement isn't a mechanic in figure or speed staking. Salmancer (talk) 07:24, December 27, 2024 (EST)

Also, thanks to Mario Kart and Mario Party having full coverage, there's already a couple implied artificial spaces. Including the minigame outright called Ice Hockey. Salmancer (talk) 07:37, December 27, 2024 (EST)

I don't really want this to become a wastbasket page: this page is aimed to document what is recognized in Japan as the "ice floor," which is a discrete, naturally-occurring object in the games it appears in. It just does not have a consistent, all encompassing name in English. The inclusion of things like Bobsled Run is because it clearly occurs on natural ice floors, like the ones you would find in the mainline series. In my view, the Mario & Sonic games are covered perfectly well enough on their own pages already and don't have to be here. They are not the same thing. - Nintendo101 (talk) 10:23, December 27, 2024 (EST)

That criteria is untenable. One, because of the Ice Hockey minigame, which has to be removed under this clause. Meaning the Mario Party section includes every minigame where ice makes you slide except that one, leading to an endless back and forth of people putting it back on the page then other people having to tell them it stays off the page because its artificial ice. Two, because under that clause Rugged Road from Paper Mario: Sticker Star has to be excluded because the ice created by freezing the volcanic area is very obviously artificial. This creates another "back and forth" situation. Three, giant icebergs as seen in Glacial Meltdown and Polar Extreme are not frozen over portions of normal ground, meaning this is already a wastebasket taxon. Salmancer (talk) 10:48, December 27, 2024 (EST)

I think you are missing the forest for the trees. The article is about terrain that causes the player character to have reduced traction and skid. An object recognized as discrete in the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia. That is it. This article is not about the "concept" of ice. I am more than happy to exclude more Mario Party minigames - I do not have as much familiarity with that series as a whole. And I suspect you know what I mean by artificial - I am referring to things like this. Ice hockey, curling, etc. are about the sports first, and not really about the surface they are on. I believe it is diluting, and I don't like having wastebasket articles (which we also already have policies discouraging). I also recommend ditching words like "clause" - we are not writing legal documents. There's no reason to get worked up. - Nintendo101 (talk) 10:58, December 27, 2024 (EST)

From what I can glean from the article, I think it might help to view ice as an unusual hazard meant to hinder players vs ice as simply part of the sport. So, ice hockey has ice as a default terrain, and the controls over ice is expected so no coverage; whereas arenas that's covered in ice designed to mess you up like in Random Ruckus in Mario Party 5 or The Wastelands in Mario Strikers Charged would have the coverage. It's not always clear, however. Mario Party minigames have a tendency to feature ice as just another form of movement like in Later Skater or Ice Hockey (minigame) so it's a bit trickier to call. It's me, Mario! (Talk / Stalk) 18:33, December 27, 2024 (EST)

That's the thing. I don't think placing slippery ice on the sliding scale of "is within these bounds" and "not within these bounds" is especially fun, nor do I want to have to tell others "all those words you added have to be deleted because you didn't correctly determine how icy the ice you were adding is". I prefer inclusion being fairly simple for those reasons. (I did have to replay most of world 5 to confirm where the ice is, otherwise I would have missed A Little Light Snowfall. Imagine if I did that then got told "nope, you did it wrong".) Salmancer (talk) 12:06, December 28, 2024 (EST)

Oh, a corner case. Like I expected to happen. WarioWare subjects appear to be restricted to only getting series headers, but that means they're still in history sections. Ice Climber (WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!) is a microgame with slipping sliding ice. Because it's based on Ice Climber, a game with slipping sliding ice. It's uh, natural. I think you could say they're blocks of ice, but then we're conflating a Mario specific thing (Blocks) with a non-Mario specific thing, something done only for Mimic (treasure chest). (And that's more of an overarching trope than any one thing.) The mircogame itself has non-ice surfaces in the WarioWare Gold version, and one could argue that even the original microgame has non-ice surfaces because its based on a game with non-ice surfaces. Basically it's a colossal headache. Salmancer (talk) 08:27, January 13, 2025 (EST)

Generic subject?

I thought ice is a generic subject in the context in this article. As has been discussed before, it was why I thought it was suitable to change the opening so that it doesn't sound like something that comes from the Super Mario franchise. Super Mario RPG (talk) 10:43, December 27, 2024 (EST)

I at least did not write this article with the idea of this article covering a generic subject. I wrote this article about a surface terrain/platform subject that causes the player character to have reduced traction and skid, which is recognized as a proper subject in works like the Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia. It is not about the real-world concept of ice. - Nintendo101 (talk) 10:46, December 27, 2024 (EST)

Is there a way this can be clarified in the article opening? Super Mario RPG (talk) 10:50, December 27, 2024 (EST)

Do you feel like that is not already clear in the opening? - Nintendo101 (talk) 11:00, December 27, 2024 (EST)

It is, but perhaps I thought that someone else would change the structure of the sentence since it could be mistaken as one. I guess it's not a big deal, either way. Super Mario RPG (talk) 11:05, December 27, 2024 (EST)