British Seaside Simulator

What it is

British Seaside Simulator puts you in the driver's seat of a small hatchback parked facing the sea at one of fifteen British seaside spots, with rain streaming down the windshield and a road atlas on the passenger seat. This is the great British day at the beach: you drove all the way here, it is raining, and you are going to sit in the car and look at it.

How to play

Click the road atlas and pick a place: Whitby, Llandudno, Oban, Margate, Scarborough, Weston-super-Mare and others, or load a photo of your own, which stays on your device. The view changes to that seafront, blurred by rain. Red hotspots mark things in the car you can touch: the rear-view mirror, the radio, the wiper stalk, a cup in the holder, a sandwich on the dash, the steering wheel. Click them. The sound toggle controls the rain.

What makes it different

It is a simulator of an atmosphere rather than an activity. The hotspots are small car things, and none of them gets you out of the car, which is the point. The photographs are real seafronts and the car interior is convincingly ordinary, so the joke lands for anyone who has spent an August afternoon like this, watching a beach through a wet windshield with a sandwich.

Why it is on Bored

Anyone who grew up with these holidays will recognize every detail, and anyone who did not will finally understand. It comes from the same British workshop as a good many of our other toys, and the hub is on Bored as its own link.

Tips

• Sound on, the rain is the whole mood
• Try every hotspot, the wipers first
• Load your own photo of a wet day for a personal touch, it is not uploaded
• Visit all fifteen, the seafronts are different and the rain is not

FAQ