How to play CarveMania
Ski the course from the start to the finish, round every gate, as fast as you can. Every run takes seconds, a restart is instant, and every gate shows how you compare with your best run.
Play nowControls on a keyboard
| ← → | Turn. Hold for a full arc, tap to fine-tune. To link turns, roll from one key onto the other: the newer key wins while both are down. |
|---|---|
| ↑ or Shift | Tuck: less air drag, more speed on the straights. |
| ↓ | Hockey stop. |
| R | Restart. While practising, from the same split. |
| Backspace | Practise from the last split you passed. Practice times are never posted. |
| P or Esc | Pause. The run waits, frozen, until you steer or tuck again. |
| Tab | Course picker. |
| N after a run | Next course. |
| Space after a run | TV replay of your run. |
| I after a run | Run analysis: your speed down the course against the ghost you raced, and where the gap grew. |
| C after a run | Copy a challenge link: a friend who opens it races your run as a ghost. |
| H G L T M | Camera, ghosts, racing line, gate splits, music. |
Any of the arrow keys starts the run: you’re pushed out of the start already moving.
Controls on a phone or tablet
| Hold the left or right half | Turn that way. |
|---|---|
| Hold both halves | Tuck. |
| Swipe down | Hockey stop. |
Turn the phone sideways for the best view.
Gates
Go round every gate on the correct side, with its turning pole on the inside of your turn (in giant slalom, super-G and downhill, between the gate’s two poles). Brush a pole on a tight line and it bumps you back out, costing a little speed. Go the wrong side of a gate and it’s a missed gate: 2 seconds on your time.
Slalom combinations stack gates straight down the hill: a hairpin is two of them, a flush three or four. Come in over the top and make one quick turn per pole.
Going fast
- Turn early. Most of a turn should happen above the gate, not at it. Late turns skid and brake.
- Change edges just after the gate. A clean, on-time edge change gives you a kick of speed into the next turn.
- Delayed gates sit far to the side: start the turn early and high to carry your speed round.
- Ice has almost no grip. Finish the turn before it, glide across flat, and turn again after.
- Tuck on the straights in the speed events. In slalom a tuck throws away the spring of the edge change.
- Jumps: let go of the tuck before the lip and tuck again just before it, to stay low and land sooner.
Medals, ghosts and world records
Each course has Bronze, Silver and Gold medal times and a Course Setter time to beat (and something hidden past that). Race your best run as a ghost, the leader’s run from the leaderboard, or a friend’s from a challenge link. Finished runs post to the world records and leaderboards, where every time is replayed on the server before it counts.
New to it? Start with the green courses, then the blues and blacks. The course list has them all, and how the four events differ explains slalom, giant slalom, super-G and downhill.