watchOS prototype: digital crown as the sole input for a downhill slalom skier. No accelerator — speed comes from gravity when pointed straight and bleeds off the harder you carve, so the crown angle does double duty as both steering and brake. Gates force rapid left-right-left flicks.
Two crown mappings were implemented and feel-tested (SteeringMode in ContentView.swift):
- RATE — crown rotation speed accumulates into steering angle, springs back to center when you stop turning.
- ABS — crown position maps directly to angle, no spring-back.
Feel-tested on device and killed — the core loop was boring. It wasn't a tuning problem: the RATE
mode's response curve (rateGain vs decayRate) was adjusted to fix an initial "sluggish
regardless of spin speed" complaint, and the mechanic still didn't hold up once steering felt
responsive. Crown-as-sole-input may still be worth revisiting, but with a different core loop
(e.g. an actual accelerator, a different risk/reward shape, or something other than slalom
framing) rather than by continuing to iterate on this version.
The existing code is a discarded spike, not a base to build on if this comes back.