Canal Boat Simulator
19 comments
·June 22, 2025freeCandy
In case people are confused (like I was) when starting the game,
use arrow keys
martinrue
Reading this I totally feel the hacker vibes that carried me through my teens. Just sitting down and building something cool for the fun of it. Nice work! I once did something similar in C to create a 2d isometric training campus where I could teach others C on a whiteboard. I made the walls in Paint, just like you mentioned! One of the most fun things I ever made.
yawpitch
Cute. Shame the basic physics are wrong; a narrowboat is tiller driven (you push the controls left to go right) and rotates about its center, whereas this is closer to the front. Also reversing flips the dynamics, is much less directionally stable than forward motion, and introduces the Fun of both prop walk and potential cavitation.
Plus a real canal boat simulator would put a weed hatch incident well before a tidal wave.
Can’t believe I’ve been living on one of these things since before we discovered we were in the mirror timeline.
jdeastwood
There is a more simulatory simulator linked at the bottom of the post, narrowboat simulator by Michael Donning.
yawpitch
Yeah, my complaint is more that ChatGPT hasn’t been trained enough on my YouTube channel.
scubakid
This brings me back to hacking quirky GameMaker games together after school as a kid, just for the joy and creativity of it. I miss how the internet used to feel back then. Thanks for the reminder :)
qwertox
Thank you for adding a finish point, I was getting anxious and started to hope that the tsunami would get me so that the game is over. Great idea and great implementation.
skittleson
It just screams as the start of joke but end up finding it's a quick quirky game you wanna share with ppl. Great job!
TMEHpodcast
This is fun and addictive! Feature request: Bonus points if you know where you are (geo-guesser-like)
jppope
this is completely amazing. well done Jacob
structure7
Kids and I had a blast with it!
Stevvo
Doesn't work using Chrome on Windows. Start button does nothing.
sandworm101
That isnt a button. It is an instruction, a sign on the map. Push forwards.
potatoproduct
I made the same mistake.. Its perfect user feedback ;)
fuzzfactor
Nice real life experience :)
Glorious! I was also temporarily trapped by the intuitive “Start Game” UI. After that, it made me think of a weird version of Spy Hunter on a canal. I had to experiment to see if I could ride the tsunami all the way to the end.
Port it to the ZX Spectrum and it would be a classic CSSCGC entry.