Driving technique in Fresh Ice: clean lines and a hot Glass Streak
How the resurfacer turns, how to plan a route with U-turns and taps, and how to keep the Glass Streak at x5 for more Tips.
Published
The first few levels of Fresh Ice forgive almost any route. By the time you reach the pond, the curling club or the speed oval, the difference between a three-star run and a late finish is mostly about how you drive. Here is how the machine moves and how to plan around it.
How the machine moves
The resurfacer only drives forward, and it turns on one fixed arc. Every turn carves the same curve at the same speed, so once you have done a few dozen of them you can predict exactly where you will come out. You are not steering, you are choosing directions at the right moment.
A swipe always snaps to up, down, left or right. After the turn, the machine drives dead straight until something stops it. Three things can happen when it reaches an edge:
- A glancing hit: if you meet the boards at a shallow angle, the machine lines up with them and keeps following them, round a corner or so.
- A head-on hit: if you drive straight into the boards or a net, the machine stops and waits for your next swipe.
- A hard bump: a head-on hit at speed makes a thud and knocks your Glass Streak down one level.
That last point matters. Stopping is free, but crashing is not, so try to swipe for your turn before you reach the wall rather than after.
The U-turn is your main tool
Swiping back the way you came is the move you will use most. Instead of spinning in place, the machine makes a half circle into the next row over, which lines it up for a fresh pass alongside the one you just drove. The rows overlap slightly, so a run of U-turns leaves no gaps.
You choose the side with the angle of your swipe. Lean the swipe a little left or right and the machine turns that way. If you swipe dead straight back, the game picks the side with more dirty ice left along the next row, which is usually what you want anyway.
The classic resurfacing pattern is a serpentine: a long straight pass, a U-turn, a long straight pass back, and so on across the rink. Straight passes clean at full speed, and turns are slow.
Using the long side
Most rinks are taller than they are wide. Running your serpentine up and down the long way means fewer turns per square of ice, which saves time. Wide, short rows have the opposite effect: you spend half the level in U-turns. The canal and the oval have their own shapes, but the long-pass rule still applies.
Working round nets and holes
Nets, fishing holes, ice shacks and parked curling stones break up your lines. When the machine is up against one of these and you swipe along or towards it, the machine hugs it: it rolls round the obstacle with its side pressed close, then carries on in the direction you swiped once it is clear. This lets you clean right up to an obstacle instead of leaving a ring of grey around it.
When to tap instead of swipe
Tapping a spot on the ice sends the machine straight there at any angle, then it carries on in that direction. It ignores the four-way snap, which makes it ideal for:
- Rounded corners on arena rinks that a straight pass cannot reach.
- Small patches left after a flurry or a skater.
- Collecting an item without wrecking your row pattern.
- The last few percent of the rink, which the game outlines once less than five percent is left.
Tapping for long stretches is slower than a good serpentine, so use it for clean-up, not as your main way of driving.
Keeping the Glass Streak hot
The Glass Streak multiplies the Tips you earn from cleaning, from x1 up to x5. Here is how it behaves:
- Clearing dirty ice fills the meter. When it is full, the multiplier rises by one.
- Driving for more than about a second over ice that is already clean starts draining it. If it empties, the multiplier drops.
- A hard bump costs one level straight away.
The habits that win stars also build the streak. The worst moment for the streak is usually the end of a level, when you cross clean ice to reach scattered patches. If you can, sweep up stray patches on the way rather than leaving them all for the finish.
Handling the troublemakers
Skaters, flurries, popcorn and slush do not end a level, they change your route. Drive close to a skater to send them off, push through slush (it wears away as you drive over it), and keep a mental note of any finished section that gets dusted so you can fold it into a later pass. The venues guide lists which rink brings which trouble.
Practice makes the turning arc second nature, so take the machine out for a few laps and try to finish a whole rink without a single bump.