Is there a skimming stones game?

Skimming Stones is a small, satisfying game in Games by Zaweba where you skip flat stones across a lake. A low, fast throw with the right tilt bounces on and on, and each skip and each metre adds to your score over five throws. It is free and works offline on Windows.

It is one of the gentler games in the app, the kind you open for a couple of minutes to see if you can beat your best.

Throwing a stone

Press, pull back away from the lake, and let go. A longer pull throws faster, and pulling down as well throws higher. Before you throw, set the stone's tilt with the buttons on screen or the mouse wheel; with the keyboard, Up and Down change the tilt.

After each throw, Space carries on to the next.

The right tilt and a shallow angle

About 20 degrees of tilt skims best. Too flat and the stone slaps the water; too steep and it digs in and sinks. Start at around 20 and only change it once you have found a good throw, so you know what the change did.

The other half of a good skim is the angle the stone meets the water. Throw low and fast so it arrives at a shallow angle. A high throw drops steeply and sinks on its first bounce, however fast it was going. A low, fast throw keeps skipping.

Watch the wind and the ripples too. Both affect how the stone behaves on the water, and a throw that worked perfectly on the last go may need a small change on the next.

How Skimming Stones scores

Each skip scores ten and each metre scores one. So a throw with many short skips and a throw with fewer long skips can score about the same. Over five throws, consistency wins. One wonderful throw and four sinkers usually scores less than five good, steady throws.

Your best score is kept on the game's tile in Games by Zaweba, along with how often you have played, in a scores file on your own PC.

Skimming Stones is also a good game to share. It is easy to explain in a sentence, and children pick up the press, pull and let go quickly. The tilt buttons give older players something more to tinker with, and the score shows who has found the knack. Because each throw is short, turns pass round a family quickly, and the best score waits on the tile for the next person to beat. It is a calm game, with no clock and nothing chasing you, which makes it a nice change after one of the busier games.

Finding the lake

Skimming Stones is on the Skill & sport shelf, with darts, archery, pool and more. Press Ctrl+F and type skim to jump to it. The title card explains how to throw before the first stone, F1 brings it back, Esc pauses and F11 shows the whole lake.

Everything, from the water to the plop of the stone, is drawn and synthesised in code, so there are no downloads, no adverts and no accounts. If you enjoy the feel of a good flick, Bin It on the same shelf is another simple, satisfying throw.