Introducing Chess On Ice

A Curling Simulator/Game

(Version 1.0)

Go to Download Page.

Backstory

Some time ago, I went looking for a curling app to play from the perspective of the Skip.

I wanted a game I could use for:

• practicing making various kinds of shots;
• determining what shots are possible or higher/lower percentage; and,
• trying out different strategies and tactics.

I found a few apps made from the thrower’s perspective, but I wasn’t interested in learning how to move my finger “just so” in order to succeed at a video game — I wanted to learn shots, tactics, and strategy! And I wanted to do it from the Skip’s end of the sheet, so I could become a better Skip and Vice. So, I decided to make my own using the Unity Framework.

I’m now at a version that feels like it’s worth sharing (though it’s not yet at a point where I’d ask money for it… and who knows if it ever will be). It’s now available for both MacOS and PC/Windows: download it for free and give it a try.

At the moment, it should probably be called a simulator rather than a game because you can only play one end before restarting and you have to keep track of the score yourself as well as who has last rock each end. The controls are functional, but not optimized. So I’m definitely looking for feedback, encouragement, requests for a particular platform (iOS, Android, XBox, etc), and whatnot so I know I’m not wasting my time! 😉

Opening Screens

Figure 1 shows the first screen upon opening the app. This is the Skip’s View. There are various views available:

• Skip View (Figure 1, above) — the opening view, as if from the Skip’s perspective.
• Gallery View (Figure 2) — as if from behind the glass on the second floor.
• Crouch View (Figure 3) — as if you have crouched down, potentially useful for calling line on takeouts or close come-arounds.
• House Cam (Figure 4) — the camera view from directly above the house, as seen on television.
• High Cam (Figure 5) — the house cam zoomed out to see everything from the hog line to the backboards.

From among these various views, you can switch to the one(s) that gives you the perspective you need to call your shot and execute it. To switch between these views, click the appropriate button on the top right of the window.

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Note: The House Cam View follows the stone as it moves down the ice, if that appeals to you, from when it is delivered from the far hack until it reaches the rings.

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Setup

You, the player, have the same control as a Skip or Vice: you call your shot, and your thrower and sweepers execute to the best of their ability. You can also choose when they sweep (although in a future version, sweepers should get to call weight to the best of their ability as well while the skip calls line).

However, you do get to choose how good your team is using the settings on in the drop-downs in the top left of the window for weight, line of delivery, and sweeping ability:

• Weight: Choose how many feet (plus or minus) of error your throwers might normally have. Default is +/- 4 feet.
• Line: Choose how many inches of error (plus or minus) from the broom your throwers will normally have. Default is +/- 6 inches.
• Sweeping: Choose how far your sweepers can drag a draw shot if they sweep it for the entire length of the sheet. Default is 8 feet.

The goal of those default settings it to simulate reasonably good house league players. Although such players probably can’t sweep a rock for 8 extra feet of draw weight, that default was chosen to make the game/simulator more interesting. Of course, you could adjust those to simulate brand new curlers or top Briar champions. The choice is yours! (And the required strategy and tactics will be very different in each case!)

The above settings mean that the player will be within the chosen plus/minus value 95% of the time. The other 5% of the time, they’ll miss by more… occasionally a lot more, just like in real curling!

For the mathematically-minded, you might have realized that these abilities follow a 95% Confidence Interval according to a Normal Distribution. (If you don’t know what that means, you can safely ignore it, don’t worry!)

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Game Play

First, you need to call your shot: turn, weight, and line. In Figure 7, you can see in the top right of the window that the turn is set to counterclockwise (CCW), with the arrow showing that it will curl to the right from the Skip’s perspective. To change this to clockwise (CW), or curling to the left from the Skip’s perspective, click the button once; a second click changes back to CCW.

You can also see the dropdown menu showing the choice of weight. It uses zones for guard / draw weight.

• Zone 1: long guard
• Zone 2: medium guard
• Zone 3: short guard
• Zone 3/4: biting the top of the rings (~15.6 seconds hog-to-hog)

• Zone 4: top 12-foot ring (blue)
• Zone 5: top 8-foot ring (white)
• Zone 6: top 4-foot ring (red)
• Zone 7: the button (white) / tee-line (~14.5 seconds hog-to-hog)

• Zone 8: the back 4-foot ring (red)
• Zone 9: the back 8-foot ring (white)
• Zone 10: the back 12-foot ring (blue)
• Backline: biting the back of the rings (~13.7 seconds hog-to-hog)

You can choose any of those ten zones, or halfway between them — e.g. “Zone 1”, “Zone 1/2”, “Zone 2”, “Zone 2/3”, et cetera.

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In Figure 8, you can see the possible takeout weights:

• Backline: ~13.7 seconds hog-to-hog. (Stops on the backline if it doesn’t hit another rock first.)
• Backline / Hack: ~13.3 seconds hog-to-hog. (Stops halfway between the backline and hack if it doesn’t hit another rock first.)
• Hack: ~13.0 seconds hog-to-hog. (Stops beside the hack — 6 feet behind the backline — if it doesn’t hit another rock first.)
• Board: ~12.4 seconds hog-to-hog. (Stops at the boards — 6 feet behind the hack — if it doesn’t hit another rock first.)
• Control: ~11.0 seconds hog-to-hog.
• Normal: ~10.0 seconds hog-to-hog.
• Firm: ~9.0 seconds hog-to-hog.
• Peel: ~8.0 seconds hog-to-hog.

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The broom is the dark blue shape that looks like a broom head. The broom position at the start of the game is visible in Figure 1: six inches left of the left edge of the 8-foot ring, in the blue 12-foot ring. In Figure 8 above, you can see it in the red 4-foot ring about six inches left of the centreline. To move the broom, grab it with your mouse pointer and drag it anywhere you want it to go.

Be careful, though: you can also drags rocks around by clicking and dragging them, so you’ll want to keep the broom from getting too close to any rock to avoid dragging a rock accidentally. This is a useful feature if you want to set up particular shots to try. It really is a simulator at this point, and not a game!

Once you’ve set your broom position for line, chosen your weight from the drop-down menu, and selected clockwise or counterclockwise in the button beside the weight menu, you’re ready to throw the stone. Click the “THROW” button at the top right. The number in the button tells you which stone you’re throwing, and the button colour tells you which colour stone is currently being thrown.

It’s not curling if you can’t sweep, so push the SWEEP button if you want your sweepers to sweep, and it will turn a dark blue colour to indicate sweeping. To stop them from sweeping, click the SWEEP button again, and it will return to a light grey colour indicating no sweeping.

Other Information

In Figure 9 below, you can see that lead stones of both colours have been thrown, and so Yellow stone number 3 is up next.

You can also see that the last stone thrown had a split time of 3.66 seconds from the first back-line to the first hog-line, and a hog-to-hog time of 15.14 seconds. It’s the green stone in the top 12-foot ring, behind the green corner guard. Its current speed is 0.0 feet per second, but when it was moving, you could see its instantaneous speed in feet per second.

And the final light blue numbers above the THROW button indicates the elapsed time of this end.

Other views of this point in the end are shown in Figures 10, 11, and 12 below.

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Moving To Another Position

Just like in a real game, you can move anywhere you choose to on the sheet. Simply click the ice sheet itself and drag it to slide it to another position.

Figures 13, 14, and 15 below show views from the right hand side of the house in Gallery View, Skip View, and Crouch View, respectively.

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Scoring

As with real life curling, usually you can tell by eye which rocks are closer to the pin and therefore which rocks count and what the final score is for the end; but sometimes, the stones are too close to call and need to be measured.

Once the final stone of the end has been thrown, the THROW button will turn red, and become the MEASURE STONES button. Pressing this button will number the stones in the rings from closest to farthest from the pin, allowing you to score the end.

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Oh… you want to play another end? 😉 No problem. Make a note of the score, and quit the app. (To quit the full-screen app, move your mouse to the top of the screen and the traffic-light window adjustors will appear in the top left, allowing you to close the window.) Restart the app to play another end.  You choose how many ends to play.

Note: Since yellow always throws first rocks and Green always has the hammer, you’ll need to switch colours whenever the last rock (hammer) switches players. (If you’re new to curling: when one team scores, the other team gets the “hammer” or last rock in the following end.)

Conclusion

That’s it! 🙂

Please give me any feedback you have. Feel free to share this link with your friends, and please tell me how you’re using Chess On Ice (Version 1.0).

Happy Holidays!

Go to Download Page.