How to play
- Goal
- Finish the match with more points than the rival crew.
- How it ends
- After the last end the higher score wins; a tie plays extra ends, and a match still level after three extra ends is a draw.
- Record
- The widest win and the fastest win for each match.
- Each end, one stone of each side is placed first; then you and the rival throw three each. Finish the match with more points than the rival crew.
- Tap or drag the ice to place the skip's broom: your stone leaves straight at it and curls away from that line as it slows, to the side you pick with the curl buttons. A gentle draw curls far more than a fast hit.
- Hold Throw (or Space) and the weight builds: a dashed line runs up the ice to where the stone would stop if nobody swept it, and the meter names the spot, from Guard through the rings of the house to Hit and Peel. Let go when the line reaches your mark. There is no hidden error: the stone goes where your broom, curl and moment of letting go send it.
- While your stone slides, hold the ice, the Sweep button or Space: swept, it slides further and curls less. The status line says where it would stop unswept.
- After the last stone only the side with the stone nearest the button scores, one point for each of its stones nearer than the other side's best, and only stones touching the house count. The first three stones of an end may not knock any stone out of play: if one does, the stones go back and the thrown stone is removed.
Controls
| Tap or drag the ice | Place the skip's broom |
|---|---|
| Hold Throw, let go | Deliver the stone: the weight builds while you hold |
| Arrow keys across the sheet | Move the broom (Shift for 1 cm steps) |
| Q · E | Curl left · curl right |
| Hold Space · Enter | Deliver; let go at your mark |
| Hold Space, the ice or Sweep | Sweep your sliding stone |
| H | Hurry: show the slide faster |
| P · Escape | Pause; Restart and Leave are there |
The stones are a Blender render of Krevholt granite with rune-lit handles, the eight skips' portraits and the title painting were drawn for the game, and the lakes' backdrops are warehouse paintings, all placed in the Morass warehouse; the slide, the sweep and the strike are warehouse recordings of real curling. A match is sent as your throws alone, and the records worker plays the whole match again, the rival's throws included, before it ranks it. Your progress stays in this browser under morass.curling.v1. No ads or analytics run inside the game.
About Curling
Curling on the frozen meres of the north, in the Wardens' winter league. Each end starts the way mixed doubles does, with one stone of each side placed on the ice, and then each side throws three. You set the skip's broom and the curl, then deliver the stone: hold, the weight builds, and you let go when the line on the ice reaches your mark. The stone runs at the broom and bends in late as it slows; sweep it and it runs further and straighter. When the last stone stops, only the side nearest the button scores, one point for each of its stones nearer than the other side's best, and the count is drawn on the ice.
Eight rival skips keep the lakes, from Old Maud of the Millpond to the Queen's Champion on the Crown Ice. Each lake has its own ice, keen, heavy, swingy or true, and each match's ice differs a little from its lake's, so you read the curl again from your first stones. A rival reads the house, calls its shot, and throws it the way a person does, close but not perfect; late in the match it plays the score, clearing the house when ahead and building the end when behind. Some matches are whole; others start down two with the hammer in the last end, or in the middle of an end with the stones already lying.
The ice runs on arithmetic every browser rounds the same way, so the same throws always bring the same match, the rival's throws included. There are 120 matches, each measured against a player of human pace and ordered from the easiest to the hardest. A match you leave or reload is kept and taken up where it stood. Each keeps a Top 10 for the widest win and one for the fastest win, and the site plays the whole match again before it keeps a place.
