About the game

Somebody has to do it

Double Yellow is a free puzzle game in which you play the least popular person on the high street. You have a clipboard, a pen and a notebook with a few empty boxes in it, and the council would like them filled.

Every car on the street wears a countdown: the minutes until its driver comes back from the shops. Every step you take costs a minute, and so does every ticket. So the question on each level is simple to ask and fun to answer: in what order do you walk the street so that you get to each car before its driver does?

Handmade streets

The levels are built by hand, a street at a time, and each street teaches one idea. Acacia Road is about countdowns and learning to let a car go. Station Approach brings in pay and display meters, where a car next to you is not ticketable yet. Chapel Street puts cars on both sides of the road and gives you a zebra crossing or two. The first level of a street shows you the idea, the middle ones test it, and the last one turns it round.

Nothing is random and nothing is hidden. Every countdown is on show from the first minute, and holding a car shows you exactly where you would walk and which cars you would lose on the way. If a car gets away, it is because of the order you chose, and undo is free.

How it is made

The game runs in your browser with no download and no sign-up. It shares its toy street with Tight Spot, drawn in 3D with a tilt-shift lens so it looks like a model village. The rules are separate from the drawing. Every minute is worked out instantly, and the street then catches up, giving each ticket, grumble and departing car a moment of its own.

Every level is checked by a computer warden that tries every possible order of moves. That is how each level's par is set, and how we know every level can be done. Some levels are also checked against simple strategies, like always going for the nearest car, to make sure those strategies fail where the level means them to.

Your stars are saved in your own browser. There are no accounts. The privacy page explains exactly what that involves.

Get in touch

Found a bug, a level you think is unfair, or a line the supervisor should say? Send a note to arbaz00@gmail.com. Complaints about the parking ticket you got in real life should go to your actual council.