Nordic Skating

An endless skate over thin black ice. The ice sings under every stride, and the thinner it is, the higher it sings. Leave it alone and it skates itself, for as long as you like.

Controls

Steer

Drag left or right from wherever you touch, or use ← → or A D; or, on a phone, press Tilt at the bottom left and lean it. Let go and the skater carries on the way you sent it, curving gently on from there; it does not go back to where it was. Hold it over and the skater turns right round: there is room for a circle wherever the water is wide.

Choose a way at a fork

A touch towards it on the way up to the fork is enough. Do nothing and the skater picks one.

Islets

Tufts of reeds standing in the ice. The skater goes round them unasked; you can weave between them, or circle one.

Go faster or slower

The button at the bottom right steps through five paces, from a meander to an Olympic sprint; or use ↑ ↓ or W S.

Sound on or off

The button at the top right, or M.

With a game controller

Either stick or the direction buttons steer; up and down on the direction buttons, or the shoulder buttons, change pace. Y or triangle goes to another lake; X or square turns the sound on and off.

Another lake

Randomize, at the top left, or R. The browser’s Back button returns to the lake you left.

Time of day, and more

Settings, at the top left: day, dusk, night under the Milky Way, or the northern lights; clear, snowing, or a blizzard. Left alone, every lake has a time and a weather of its own.

Every visit is to a different lake, one of a million.

The ice

Milky grey

Thick ice. A low, plain note.

Dark grey

Thinner ice, near its limit. This is the ice that sings.

Nearly black

Thin ice. A high note, and it cracks around you.

Bright pink

Impossibly thin ice. A very high note, and no cracks at all.

Nobody falls through. How thick the ice is decides only how it sounds.

The sound

None of it is a recording. It is synthesized from the physics of thin ice: the note is the one frequency at which a sheet of that thickness gives its sound to the air, and the falling “pew” is a distant crack, its high notes arriving first.

Inspired by National Geographic’s film Hear the Otherworldly Sounds of Skating on Thin Ice.

How it works, and credits · Source

Icons by Icongeek26, from Flaticon.

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