Fresh Ice venues and The Shed: rinks, machines and power-ups
A tour of all ten Fresh Ice venues and their hazards, plus what each power-up does in The Shed and which ones to buy first.
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Fresh Ice sends your resurfacer on the road. Every five levels you move to a new venue with its own ice and its own trouble. Between levels, The Shed is where you spend your Tips.
How the venues rotate
There are ten venues. You play five levels at one, then move on to the next, so a full tour of all ten takes 50 levels. A season is four tours, 200 levels in all, and every visit to a venue is a little harder than the last as more hazards join in. When a new season starts, the venues begin at their hardest settings, the puck-drop clock gets tighter, and patches of slush turn up nearly everywhere.
The Venues screen shows each place you have reached, your stars there and whether you found its golden lace. Tap one to replay its levels.
The ten venues
- Memorial Arena: the home rink. Nets at both ends to work round, then kids sneaking on, slush, popcorn from the stands and eventually a power cut.
- Plaza Rink: downtown under string lights. Skaters wait at the rail and sneak on early, and later come slush, flurries and skating-aid penguins parked on the ice.
- Miller's Pond: no boards, just snowbanks, with fishing holes to steer round and flurries that keep falling.
- Granite Curling Club: a long, narrow sheet with stones parked in the house as obstacles, plus slush and the odd skater.
- Backyard Rink: plywood boards, a kid's net, later a snowman, and a dog who loves fresh ice a bit too much.
- Glacier Lake: a huge wild lake under the northern lights, with an ice shack, fishing holes and pressure cracks that break open if you cross them three times.
- Gala Night: a figure-skating show. Fans throw roses that scuff the ice where they land, but you can scoop them up for Tips. Skaters warm up early, and the lights can go out.
- Canal Skateway: ice winding through a city, with bridges overhead, crowds spilling onto the ice, slush and flurries.
- Speed Oval: a ring-shaped 400 m oval of long sweeping curves, rubber lane blocks and racers out for warm-up laps.
- Stadium Classic: the season finale, with snow falling, crowds of skaters, popcorn and fireworks overhead.
The golden laces
Each venue hides one golden skate lace in its tenth level. Picking it up is worth 100 Tips. Find all ten and every machine in The Shed gets gold trim. It is usually tucked far from where you start, so plan a detour.
Machines
The Machines tab holds the resurfacers you can drive. Everyone starts with The Classic. The others change how your machine looks, not how it handles, so collect them for fun rather than for an advantage. Firehouse (2,500 Tips) and Night Shift (4,000) are bought. The rest are earned, such as the Hot Dog Cart for collecting 50 pucks, mittens or roses, and The Shed lists the goal for each.
Power-ups
The Power-ups tab is where Tips make a real difference.
- Whistle (100 Tips): clears skaters and dogs off the ice and keeps them off for the rest of the level.
- Puck Magnet (120): for 20 seconds, pickups slide toward you from across the ice.
- Wide Blade (150): an extra-wide blade for 20 seconds, so every pass cleans half again as much ice.
- Time Out (150): the horn sounds and the puck-drop clock stops for 10 seconds.
- Hot Water (200): you drive faster for 15 seconds, and Tips earned while it runs count double.
- Edger Lap (250): a small edging cart zips once round the edge of the rink and cleans the strip along it.
- Snow Cannon (300): blasts a big circle of ice clean around the machine.
You can bring two kinds of power-up into each level. Mark them with Bring and they fill your slots when a level starts, with every one you own of each kind, so three Wide Blades in the Shed means three to use in that level. A small number on the slot shows how many are left. A power-up from your bag is only used up when you tap it, so bringing one costs nothing if you finish without it. Tap a timed power-up again while it is running and the extra time is added on top.
Tokens also appear on the ice from level 3 onwards. In the early levels these are Wide Blade, Snow Cannon or Time Out, and later any power-up can show up. A token of a kind already in a slot stacks on it. If both slots hold other kinds, the token goes to The Shed instead, ready to bring next time. Tokens you pick up are yours to keep: one you don't use in a level is still there the next.
What to buy first
With nothing in the bank, the best value is usually Time Out. Ten seconds off the clock is often exactly the gap between two stars and three, and it costs only 150. Snow Cannon is the other star saver: save it for the end of a level, when the last patches are spread out and slow to reach.
Where skaters keep undoing your work, the cheap Whistle pays for itself. Hot Water is the pick for Tips: use it during long straight passes while the Glass Streak is high, since it doubles what you earn from cleaning.
There's a lot of road between Memorial Arena and the stadium, so head out and see how far you get.