SWEEP! is a curling board game for two players (or teams), aged 14+, developed by my friend Michael Demko and available for online purchase from The Game Crafter. While being a very talented Computer Scientist in his daily work, Michael, who is a University of Waterloo alumnus and originally hails from Yellowknife, NWT, is also an avid curler and has been developing SWEEP! for several years.
In SWEEP!, Mike has put together a game that combines elements of curling strategy and tactics with aspects of the randomness of shot outcomes – for example, a “miss” can result in a roll to the left, to the right, or a roll-out – in a game suitable for players who are teens or older.
The board
The board consists of twelve “zones”, six zones being in the rings – three in front of the tee line, and three behind – along with another six zones in front of the rings for guards.
For any particular shot, the player must declare (a) the type of shot (guard, draw, or hit), the rotation (clockwise or counter-clockwise), and the intended zone to which the shot is to be played. Where the stone will actually end up depends on rolls of a die. In brief, most shot involve two rolls: the first to determine the outcome, and the second to where the stone will come to rest, with the numbered circles 1-6 in the rings corresponding to the result of the second roll.
Shot-making
As in the real game of curling, the two players alternate throws, the player with “hammer” in the first end decided by a roll of the die or a more traditional coin flip. To execute a shot, the player calls the shot (rotation, type of shot, and target zone) and then rolls the die one or more times to determine the outcome of the shot. There are different outcomes for hits versus draws and guards, and different outcomes for half-shots depending on the rotation of the thrown stone.
The game is intended to match the randomness of club games versus the precision shot-making ones sees on TV. In SWEEP!, a player has the ability to use one of six “sweep tokens” during each end of play, that permits a re-roll of the die to change the outcome of the shot if the original outcome was deemed undesirable.
The complete rules for the game are available online in PDF format.
Shot outcomes supported by the game include freezes, tap-backs, wrecking on guards, rolling left or right, rolling out of play, drawing short or heavy – giving a realistic sense of the real game.
SWEEP! is a game that can help introduce young people to the sport of curling, and is a great way to spend a rainy afternoon at the cottage this summer.
Thanks for writing this up! You’re definitely right about the game favoring the big picture over the details. The version I was working on at first got too much into the weeds (sweeping, in particular, could only lead to longer, straighter shots), and it took more time to play an end on the board than it would on the ice.