Curling

How to Play Curling

Curling on Vibe Arcade is a faithful browser adaptation of the precision ice sport, pitting you against an AI opponent across a full sheet of simulated ice. Both sides alternate delivering eight granite stones per end, sweeping each stone toward the house — a series of concentric target rings at the far end of the sheet — with the aim of placing more stones closer to the button (the centre dot) than the opponent's nearest stone. The side that finishes an end with the closest stone scores one point for every stone nearer to the button than the opponent's best effort. Ends continue until the selected match length is complete; the player with the higher total across all ends wins.

Aiming and Delivering Your Stone

Before each delivery the game is in Aim mode. Move your mouse left or right across the canvas to set your delivery angle — a dashed trajectory guide shows where the stone will travel. The angle is capped at ±30° from centre so all realistic draws remain possible. Once you are happy with your line, click or tap the Deliver button. This starts the power bar: a gradient strip that fills and empties continuously from 0 to 100%. Click Deliver a second time (labelled Release at this point) to commit your weight. Low power produces a lightweight draw that curls heavily and stops near the house perimeter; high power produces a takeout weight that charges into the house and drives out enemy stones. Aim to release the bar at roughly 50–75% for a draw-to-button shot, and at 90–100% for a hard takeout. After the stone leaves the hack it travels under parametric physics: friction reduces its speed frame by frame while a curl drift pulls it sideways — more strongly as it slows, exactly as real granite behaves on pebbled ice.

Sweeping

Once the stone is in motion the Sweep button appears. Clicking or tapping it toggles sweeping on and off — the button reads "Sweeping..." while active. Sweeping reduces the curl by approximately 30% and extends the stone's travel distance by about 10% by locally melting the pebbled ice texture and reducing friction. In live curling two sweepers sprint alongside the stone making split-second decisions; in this game the Sweep button is your tool. Use it when the stone is running light and needs to reach the house, or when it is drifting too far off line. Touch-screen players can hold Sweep for a sustained effect using the touchstart/touchend events that are wired on mobile.

Game Modes

Quick Match runs six ends, giving you a brisk 15–20 minute game that still exercises every strategic situation. Full Match runs the traditional ten ends, the length used in Olympic competition, and rewards longer-term thinking about end-by-end hammer management. Practice mode gives you all eight stones to deliver yourself with no AI — ideal for calibrating your feel for weight and curl before stepping into a competitive match. Modes are selected before starting and cannot be changed mid-match.

Difficulty and AI Strategy

The Casual AI delivers with a generous miss radius of ±22 pixels from its target and makes straightforward shot selections. It draws to the button when it is behind and occasionally places guards, but does not pursue sophisticated tactics. Club AI tightens the miss radius to ±12 pixels and begins to mix in guard placements and targeted takeouts — it will send a takeout at your scoring stone when it sits inside the 8-foot ring and the AI is trailing. Elite AI narrows to ±5 pixels, the tightest achievable in the simulation, and pursues the optimal shot for every delivery: a guard when it has a counting stone and stones remain, a precise takeout when your stone threatens, and an accurate draw when neither tactic applies. Elite mistakes are rare and small, making it a genuinely competitive opponent that demands careful weight control and positional thinking to beat.

The Hammer and End Strategy

The hammer — shown as a coloured circle on the scoreboard — designates who delivers the last stone of the end. It is the single largest positional advantage in curling: the last stone allows you to assess the full house before committing your final delivery. After each end, the team that did NOT score earns the hammer for the next end. A blank end (zero scored by either side) leaves the hammer with whoever held it. This creates a recurring strategic trade-off: a team with the hammer can sometimes choose to blank an end intentionally, preserving the hammer, rather than scoring just one point and surrendering it to the opponent. Managing the hammer intelligently — scoring two or more when you have it, and stealing one when you do not — is the core tactical language of curling at every level of play.

Scoring in Detail

At the conclusion of each end, all eight stones from each side that have cleared the far hog line and come to rest within or touching the outer 12-foot ring are counted. The team whose stone is closest to the button scores. They receive one point for every one of their stones that is nearer to the button than the opponent's nearest counting stone. If both teams' closest stones are equidistant from the button the end is blanked and neither side scores. The scoreboard shows each end's result individually so you can track the game's momentum end by end. The running totals update after every end and are shown in the top bar throughout the match.

Elastic Collisions and Physics

The physics model uses analytical elastic collision resolution between granite stones. When a moving stone strikes a stationary one the engine computes the impulse along the line connecting their centres and redistributes velocity accordingly — just as two equal-mass objects behave in a real elastic collision. The struck stone takes up most of the velocity while the delivered stone deflects at a shallow angle. This lets skilled players execute tick shots (glancing blows that redirect a guard), peel shots (removing a row of guards), and controlled raises (nudging a friendly stone into a scoring position). Stones that come to rest outside the sheet boundaries, or that fail to clear the near hog line after delivery, are removed from play.

A Brief History of Curling

Curling is one of the oldest known team sports. The earliest confirmed reference dates to 1541 in Paisley, Scotland, where a curling stone inscribed with that year was discovered in a drained pond. By the 18th century curling clubs had formed across Scotland and the sport had spread to Canada with Scottish emigrants in the late 1700s. Canada became and remains the dominant competitive nation, fielding the world's deepest club network and winning more World Championship titles than any other country. Curling made its first Olympic appearance as a demonstration sport at Chamonix 1924 and became a full medal sport at Nagano 1998. The game is now played in more than 50 countries, with major events including the World Men's and Women's Curling Championships, the Grand Slam of Curling series on the professional tour, and the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games every four years.