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tldr: I made a curling game, i think it's good, i want your help testing it.

Hello fellow curlers, for the past 3 years I have been working on a curling game in my spare time and the store page is now live on steam. Growing up in a small town in Northern BC, curling was a big part of my life, the basement was full of curling trophies and newspaper clippings, countless hours spent at the rink, usually waiting for my Dad and uncles to finish their beers between ends. I will never forget pinning my name and phone number on the sub board for men's night at 15 years old and blowing my first guard right through the house after that first phone call. Curling has evolved a lot over the years, no more cigarette butts and ash trays on the ice or horse hair brooms. New rules, new game modes, and much more youth. To make a long story shorter, my aim with this game is to make a curling game that is fun to play, tricky to master, and as true as possible to the sport.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5345090/Curling_Simulator/

Some things that I am particularly proud of so in the game:

Online Co-op play - you can play it online with friends either VS, or together on a team, great for the mixed doubles mode, or you can just play standard curling where you alternate between holding the broom and throwing the rock.

Shot planning - this is so good when you are playing with friends unfamiliar with the sport, you can draw all over the overhead view and plan your shots and describe what you are planning. A couple of test sessions with a friend of mine has him already signing up for rec league.

The shooting mechanics - you place the broom, and choose the weight range that you like. The real magic though is the delivery mechanic, it requires a small pullback on the mouse followed by a long gentle pushforward that varies with the speed of the shot. You feel a little shaky, sometimes you let go too early or too late, sometimes a bit off to the side, etc. I think it is the best imitation to a real delivery that i have seen.

The Opponent AI - It is definitely not perfect yet, BUT the AI does have a variety of strategies, they will throw guards, make draws and take outs, some are aggressive and some play it safe, they will purposely blank an end to keep the hammer, and shake hands if they are getting stomped. They miss sometimes, they might come up short on a draw, wreck on a guard, or blow one through the house, but still know how to draw the button with their final rock. They also like to throw a ton of corner guards with the hammer, i think too many.

Save and export replays - you can easily export a replay and send it to your friends when you make a cool shot.

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I am looking for a handful of people to join the private playtest and hopefully provide some feedback from a curlers perspective that isn't my own or a friend or family, I need blunt unfiltered feedback, what situations does the AI fall short, what collisions don't make sense, the sweeping sound is too annoying etc.

The game is very playable without many bugs and I am putting in a ton of effort to make it right. I will have steam keys for the private playtest after Canadian thanksgiving for people wanting to give it a try.

If you are willing to spend an hour here or there to play a few ends and provide some feedback please shoot me a DM, or join the Discord and I'll get you a couple steam keys to try it out as soon as it goes live next week.

https://discord.gg/QkVu4XQ58x

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AI Declaration - AI was used for placeholder menu and UI elements (but are all actively being replaced well before release), and some bug identification. I have been working on this since before AI was even a viable tool. I used blender to create the stones and brooms and everything else was built in photoshop and unity.

Hey all,

After a bit of a hiatus, CurlingDraft is back for another season! It's totally free to play and I'm thinking I might even setup a prize for the season long winner.

It's a pretty simple format. You just pick the teams you think will do well based on their points per win and whoever gets the most points wins!

The first tournament is for the upcoming Slam this Tuesday. Get your picks in before then!

Feedback and suggestions are welcome!

https://curlingdraft.com

Got this Goldline impact broom last year and after starting this season I noticed a crack by the head. Is this safe to continue using?

Hey everyone! 🥌

For the last few months, we've been working on a Curling Mobile Game

Our first version is now ready and available on the Google Play Store.

However, we're still lacking feedback from real curling players and people who know the sport well. We'd really appreciate it if you could play the game and let us know:

• How does the gameplay feel?
• Is it easy to understand?
• Do the shots and mechanics feel like curling?
• Is there anything that feels unrealistic or could be improved?

We're looking forward to honest criticism and feedback. We're still learning, and feedback from people who actually play or follow curling would be extremely valuable to us.

🎮 Play Curling Mobile Game:

Google Play Link

AI Usage:
AI was used extensively throughout the development of the game, including assistance with coding, challenge planning, creative assets, and UI/UX design.

Thanks for taking the time to check it out. We're looking forward to hearing what you think! 🥌

I’m planning to buy my first pair of curling shoes as I enter my third season curling. I’ve been planning on buying Asham Clubs because they come in left handed and are a decent price to the US. I was looking at the sizing chart and am very confused. I have been a US 11.5 my entire adult life. my foot is just a little over 28cm for mondo sizing. usually those two number line up well on shoe size charts, but on theirs it puts me at a size 9.5 which is wild to me.

The flat sole version of the same shoe lists 28.5cm at a US 10.5 which seems closer but still off unless the US is supposed to be UK sizing. unfortunately being in the US means no ability to try before buying

Hopefully someone owns a pair of these shoes and can provide some clarity

Hey everyone,

I'm Jasmin, one half of Team Hoodi, Nigeria's Mixed Doubles team. I'm happy to say we're playing at the World Mixed Doubles Qualification Event at Rock Creek this week and currently have a 2-3 record in a tough early-season field.

Tomorrow at 12:30 PM MT we play Team USA, the Olympic silver medalists. We're a small team without federation funding, so this is a big one for us. That game and our Tuesday 7:30 PM MT game against Pakistan won't be on any stream. Our Tuesday 12:30 PM MT game against Hong Kong will be on Rock Creek Curling's YouTube channel. We'd love to broadcast the others ourselves so family, friends, and anyone who wants to watch Nigeria on the ice can follow along.

YouTube needs 50 subscribers before we can go live, and we're not there yet. If you have a minute to subscribe, it would mean a lot to us.

Channel: https://youtube.com/@the_teamhoodi

Thank you for the support, and good luck to every team this week.

Jasmin

UPDATE: WOW WOW WOW! Thank you all so much for helping us out! We made it to 65 subs in a couple of hours! I know it may take a bit for Google/YouTube to recognize that we’ve reached the live threshold but I’m optimistic that we’ll unlock live access before our final game. Thanks again and good curling!!!

On my third try, loving them so far!

Hi All,

Our club needed a new time clock a couple years ago and I posted the question here about what was a good alternative. The large LED red ones were well over $1000 and I knew there had to be a better solution.

We ran into some issues, not on the technical side but more on the people side. The older crowd insisted we just have a straight clock that counted down to 1h50m and that you had to have 7 ends done by the timer end. That was fine for people that have curled for years on those old clocks but we wanted something better, especially easy to use and understand for new curlers.

New curlers would always ask why 1h50m, do they have to get off the ice at that time? If we finish the 7th end by the countdown and we play the 8th, can we take as much time as we need then for the 8th? This didn't work in bonspiels but on the flip side experienced curlers when asked would just say, well that is always the way it was done and everyone does it that way. So I ask again, why? Why not make it easier for new curlers and get out of your stuck in the old ways.

I then looked at equipment and what it would take to do something better. I used a basic large LED clock as my price point, in Canadian these clocks for a decent size were $1200 and we have two broken ones in storage.

Why not just get a large TV and a micro computer like a Raspberry Pi? Then do your own software? Ok, I admit that would scare most people, but every club has at least one person that can do some basic tech setup, so we tried that. I checked for existing code and there are a number of places that offer. Time to Curl was good, I needed code that could work without an Internet connection and their code was open on GitHub but it was for more advanced time clocks. Eye on the Clock was also good but more web based, then I hit on Howard's code and it was pretty much a stand alone HTML/Javascript file that just runs on a computer.

Time to Curl
https://github.com/trianglecurling/timetocurl

Eye on the Clock
https://eyeontheclock.com/competition

Howard Griffin's Timer
https://howardgriffin.org/gametimer/

We purchased a Raspberry Pi with all the accessories. Everyone has old TVs these days and a club member donated a 70" they no longer needed for the ice side and a 42" for the club size. The new Raspberry Pi has two HDMI, so we ran two cables so the time can be seen on both sides of the glass. I threw in a keyboard and mouse to start us but I admit it is a bit awkward. I tweaked the code a bit and built another menu so people can just click with a mouse on what game they are playing, 8 end or 6 end and voila, it worked. Howard's clock runs whatever you tell it and he has custom settings, I just hard coded it according to the menu. an 8 end game the timer counts down and at 1h50min it turns yellow and throws an alarm telling people you have to have the last rock complete on the 7th end to continue. Then at 1min it goes red and basically says get off the ice, hehe.

The mouse keyboard was a bit clunky so I picked up a 10 button keypad that fits in your palm and each button is just a custom game. I programmed up the python on the Pi to accept the keypad, easy. You want an 8 end game, just press a button and it runs. There is even a pause, stop, restart to it. The keypad was $20 and I donated it.

In total the cost to the club was $180 for the Raspberry Pi and some parts, that's it. Everyone loves it, with 70" the clock is huge and easy to see, when it goes yellow and sounds off, easy to see, easy to hear, new curlers identify immediately what that yellow warning screen is.

The only complaint I get? The older crowd thinks it is too fancy and confusing, it should be a straight clock that runs to 1h50min and that's it, colours are confusing, sounds scare people and everyone knows the 1h50min rule. Again I challenge the norm, why? Curling is supposed to be inviting and new curlers understand every other sport has a clock that runs the full time. I hear time and time again curling can be very cliques-ish and I'm baffled why curlers don't want to change and try new things that helps new curlers.

On the clock side, I'll share the code and if anyone wants pics I can share, it's a great simple, easy system to run that almost anyone can set up.