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I’m normally not much for Olympic sports. While I understand the appeal of a condensed and multi-national competition, my preferred athletic events instead center on the slow crescendo of a sustained competitive season.
Curling, however, is the exception. I’m not entirely sure how I can explain this, but watching curling, for me, is a most zen-like moment: the hush of the rink, the slow glide of granite stones, and the busy work of sweepers fashioning a path across the ice.
As an American, my chance to catch curling is mostly limited to the Winter Olympics. With Age of Curling, however, my ice game of choice has arrived on the iPhone, faithfully recreating the sport’s strategy, serenity, and complexity.
Age of Curling offers matches against either another player (using the same device) or a rather sophisticated AI, and the game’s four wonderfully-rendered venues range from a contemporary stadium to an eighteenth-century Scottish castle. The gameplay faithfully represents the nuance and strategy of curling, and the controls seem custom built for the iPhone: the stone is launched by sliding the finger across the iPhone’s screen, and—once in motion—a rapid finger swipe can sweep the stone’s path, increasing the distance traveled.
In addition, a swipe around the stone can dictate the degree of “curling” that occurs, allowing the player to launch complex, strategic shots. This sort of interface really showcases the iPhone’s potential for progressive control schemes, and it allows for a level of immersion and precision not possible with the conventional configuration of a directional-pad and buttons.
