What it is

The whole of Lake Ontario, and a boat. You start at Toronto’s harbour with a 14-foot tin boat, $150 and fuel for about five kilometres. Cast off and go anywhere: across the harbour, out past the Islands, along the Bluffs, over to Niagara, or all the way down the lake to Kingston. Ten harbours on the Canadian shore, each with fuel (but one), a board of jobs and a boatyard.

The jobs are there if you want them

Cargo to another harbour, express cargo against the clock for a fast enough boat, and charters: a party out to a sight (the skyline from the lake, the old lighthouse on the Islands, the Bluffs from the water, the mouth of the Niagara River, the lift bridge over the canal, the dunes from offshore, the channel by Wolfe Island) and back. Things drift near the shores (a cooler, a paddleboard, an empty kayak) for any harbour to pay for. Every harbour but the dunes has a buoy run, a slalom or a loop off its piers, with bronze, silver and gold times set by the day’s wind.

Five boats, each with its own model, handling and sound: the tin boat, a bowrider ($1,500), a sailboat with no fuel at all ($4,500), a cabin cruiser that crosses the lake on one tank ($9,000), and a go-fast boat ($20,000) that takes the express jobs. Each takes an engine (sails on the sailboat), a tank and a hull, three steps each.

The fuel gauge tells the truth, every job on the board can be done with the boat you have, and you can never be stranded. The map draws your range as a ring, at this throttle and at the thriftiest, reading the day’s chop on your heading. A job is only offered if this boat can do it on a full tank in today’s wind, and a dry tank calls a tow that never costs more than you have.

The lake, day by day

One wind a day, and a sky to go with it: clear, fair-weather clouds, high streaks, or overcast with showers and now and then a thunderstorm, and a fog bank some calm mornings. The clock runs an hour every two minutes under way; at dusk her running lights come on, and resting at any harbour brings the next morning. Other boats are out too: sailboats and motorboats, the Island ferry, lakers, and boats at anchor that swing to the wind. People ride the boats and fill the beaches, the piers and the ferry.

Free roam, from the title: every boat, a tank that never empties, no jobs and no money. Just the lake to drive round, with the buoy runs there for your times. It keeps its own lake, apart from the one where you earn your boats, and Title screen in settings switches between them.

How to play

ThrottleThe lever on the right: up for ahead, STOP at the notch, below for astern
SteerDrag the pad at the bottom left, left or right
Look aroundDrag anywhere else on the water
Tie upSlow down in a berth and tap Tie up at …
The mapTop right
CamerasThe button above the lever

The lever stays where you leave it, and the wheel centres when you let go of the pad; two thumbs work at once. Under way, a turned view eases back behind the boat by itself after a few seconds, and the camera button brings it back at once before it cycles between behind the boat, from above and on board. The harbour’s card has the jobs, fuel, the boatyard and rest, and Cast off takes you back out. On the map, drag, pinch or use + and − to zoom, and tap a harbour for its distance by water and its fuel price.

On a desktop, use the mouse as you would touch: drag the pad to steer, drag anywhere else to look around, and the wheel zooms the map. Or use the keys: W and S (or Up and Down) move the throttle a tenth, A and D (or Left and Right) steer while held, Space or Enter ties up and casts off, M opens the map, C changes the camera, and Escape closes the map or settings.

What isn’t settled yet

It is for one player. Your lake lives in the browser it’s played in, so clearing the site’s data starts it over. The clock stops just before midnight, so a night out ends by tying up and resting at a harbour. An older phone may struggle: the picture steps down by itself after a few seconds of slow frames. There is no gamepad support, the keys can’t be remapped, and it isn’t playable with a screen reader.

Build Log

Credits and licences

Built on three.js, used under the MIT licence with the copyright notice retained in the shipped file. Typefaces are licensed under the SIL Open Font Licence. Cover drawn from the game’s own harbour, skyline, water and boat code.

Lake Ontario: Open Water is original work by Launchway Games.