downwind video game

I was recently daydreaming about a downwind video game. Video games teach pattern recognition and reflexive decision making really well. I thought a downwind game would be a great way to ingrain certain cognitive aspects of downwind paddling. It turns out there already is such a game, called swelldone . The reviews make it sound great, but I just can't make sense of it and get it to work in a way that seems like actual downwind paddling. I am curious if anyone else can get it to work better. You can find it wherever you download apps. 

Appreciate the link. Downloaded the App on my IPad but it won’t open. Ugh...

I tried on my pixel 2xl.  It was fun to experiment with the views and wind speeds.  Screen was too small and full of info for me to ever get comfy with what I was doing...  It should be fun if you get it figured out.

I'd prefer a desktop version.  I'm not a gamer to begin with, so my opinion isn't worth much.
I had trouble turning the game off, so I had to uninstall it.  

I'm glad to see someone trying and hope it takes off.  
The complexity of making something like that work across platforms truly boggles the mind. 

I searched around a bit for the whiz that is creating it.  He's in a nice stable ski!   Smart young man.  I'll bet he ditches that outrigger in a year or so...      

I too am impressed that the creator modeled waves this well and created a niche game for us. I am playing on an iPhone and the app just updated to version 3 which has surfskis added and seems a little more realistic. Just like in the real world I was initially setting the effort level to 100% and then just leaving it there. I have since started trying to dial it back once I am on a swell to get longer rides. Takes some thumb coordination. Overall it seems like the water in the game is all swells with no wind waves. Setting the wind to 55 kts makes the swells steep like a good downwind. lowering wind intensity decreases the height of the swells, but not the distance between them, so for example 15 kts, which i think of as making very nice easy to catch waves in the real world, just makes these long wavelength low amplitude swells that are hard to even see in the video game. I have never been in an OC6 but I get the feeling that the game probably models more closely the way an OC6 would follow the swell than the way a shorter more nimble craft does.  It is interesting to change perspective in the game. The drone setting makes it easiest to read the water and follow a good line. Overall its a cool game that gets better the more I play with it. Will anything from the game translate into making me a better paddler in the real world? That would be a nice surprise! 

Looks very impressive! I tried two different surfskis and I can't control the rudder, it's way too sensitive. Just moving my finger a millimeter makes the surfski turn like crazy. A couple of millimeters and it turns through 360 degrees in 2-3 seconds! Vertigooooooo!
Reading the waves is also, uhmmm, difficult, maybe it's because I never managed to go into one direction for more than a couple of seconds...
Promising!

Hi everyone, I'm the guy that created the Swelldone game.  Thanks for trying it out and giving feedback - I'll work on tuning the controls for more tracking and stability in an update soon.  Tough choices and tradeoffs between realism and playability - it's a work in progress.   

Ask me anything!  Looking for more feedback/requests.

Cheers,
Wyatt

Awesome work Wyatt!  The more i play the better it gets. Controls work well on iphone 11. It takes subtle steering to avoid oversteering but i would say that is true of the real world too. I like the way you can go over a reef or the beach and then get stranded when the wave goes out. 

would it be possible to incorporate physical tilting of the screen to simulate leaning a turn? I imaging leaning left in an OC doesnt do much but on skis boards and foils leaning is big. 

Thanks!  BTW, I was just DM'ing another user that the best way to steer is to tap-and-nudge rudder corrections when needed, rather than hold down on the screen all the time.  Holding down on the screen will definitely cause it to oversteer, because I take into account drift (significant in the OC/rudderless world).  If you watch my playtest you'll see that the boat tracks rather well and I only want to tap-and-drag when I want to make a correction or resist washing out from a wave:  

And yes, I can incorporate tilting to lean and "carve" a turn (and with OCs they'll run the risk of a huli/capsize).  Adding SUPs and foils are also in my plans!  Anything that surfs.

Thanks!
Wyatt

Any odds of a desktop version? I am hopeless at anything on a phone

I just saw there was a 5th update to the swelldone video game as of january 6th. The app can now interface with ergs. It can put your paddle onto strava. There is a new columbia river gorge course. Some other updates too. 

i tried the columbia river gorge and chose the swell city section. The hillsides certainly looked familiar. But i am much better at paddling real life swell city than the simulated version. I floundered. There were times i was going backwards, times i was underwater looking at the bottom of the columbia river, and then a couple times where I was going 60 kph. I will have to play with it some more.