[1][2] The setting and genre are created collaboratively by the two players before the game begins, and suggestions from the book are everything from modern romantic comedies to Romeo and Juliet.

Breaking the Ice is a two-player role playing game in which the players collaboratively describe the story of a romance between their characters.

If the active player describes something that puts their character at disadvantage, the guide can grant them re-roll dice.

Guillaume Clerc and Vincent Carleur reviewed Breaking the Ice as part of the article "Jeux Narrativistes: La sélection du bimestre" in Casus Belli (v4, Issue 12 - Nov/Dec 2014, pages 82-83, in French) and felt that traditional role-players would be wrong to be skeptical of this game, and that the players get attached to the characters very quickly.

Chase Carter for Polygon listed Emily Care Boss's Romance Trilogy (of which Breaking the Ice is a part) as a "seminal" game of the late aughts "blooming of indie RPG designers", along with Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World, Fiasco, and Lady Blackbird.