About Ice Slide
Ice Slide is a maze without walls. You stand on a sheet of ice dotted with rocks, and there is a flag somewhere on the board. Push off in any direction and you glide in a straight line until something stops you. The puzzle is to find a sequence of slides that ends on the flag.
How it works
The board is eight squares by eight with eleven rocks. Each puzzle is generated at random and then checked by the game, which works out the shortest possible route. Only boards that need at least five slides are used, and that best figure is shown, so you have a target as well as a goal.
If you get lost, the Back to start button returns you to where you began and resets the count.
Solving tips
Work backwards from the flag. To stop on the flag you need something just beyond it: a rock or the edge. Look at the flag's four sides. If there is a rock directly to its right, then a slide to the right along that row will stop on it. That tells you which row or column you need to arrive from.
Then repeat the question. Where can you stop that puts you in that row? Each step back gives you a new stopping place to aim for.
Remember that edges stop you too. The outer ring of squares is easy to reach, and it is often the staging post for the final slide.
Notice where you cannot stop. Most squares in the open are unreachable as resting places. Only squares beside a rock or an edge are. That shrinks the puzzle a great deal.
Try for the shortest route once you can solve it at all. Among HTML5 games it is a neat example of a rule that takes five seconds to learn and makes real puzzles.