Curling

This is fugly. But if you can wade through the interface, underneath is a suprisingly accurate model of the game of curling including the free guard rule. Thanks to Angie for some of the graphics, any unfinished mess is my fault, not hers! Look out for this getting a revisit in the run up to the 2014 Winter Olympics. Instructions below the game.

Tech: ActionScript 3, Flash, Stratus Peer to Peer

Instructions

Starting a game

Enter your name on the first screen and select either Practice or Join another online player.

For online play: send your NearID (the long number in the 2nd box) to a friend and have them send theirs back. Enter your friends NearID into the third box and click Join.

Playing the game

Aim: Grab the brush in the center of the house to aim the stone. How wide you need to aim is down to how hard you send the stone down, faster stones curl much less. You will soon learn that with a good house weight, aiming just inside of the red ring will see the stone swing back to the middle of the house.

Spin: Press the right blue button to toggle the spin, which changes the direction of the curl.

Power: Press and hold the left blue button to start the power guage, release to start your stone sliding. The higher the guage the faster you launch the stone down the ice sheet. The power guage is deliberately left unmarked, but you will quickly develop a feel for good house weight (just over half way).

Sweeping: Move the middle blue slider up and down as the the stone is sliding to increase or decrease the amount of sweeping. The harder you sweep the further the stone will go and the less it will curl. Sweeping is where the true skill of the game lies.