About the game
A small street, daily
Tight Spot is a free game about the one bit of driving almost everybody dreads. You get a street, a gap and a car, and the examiner in the passenger seat is keeping count.
Parallel parking is a proper puzzle once you take the traffic and the embarrassment away. There is a right answer, the geometry decides it, and it can be solved in two moves or twenty. So Tight Spot turns it into a shift. You work through nine streets, two parking jobs on each, and every street offers a choice of gaps: a roomy one that pays little, and tight ones that pay well if you can get in without touching anyone. Between streets you spend your pay in the Glovebox on air fresheners that reward particular habits, such as parking in one go, brushing past bumpers without contact, or scattering pigeons. Dents put penalty points on your licence, and twelve points ends the shift.
There is also a Daily Shift, where everyone playing on the same day gets the same streets, the same gaps and the same shop, so a result means the same thing on your screen as it does on your friend's. Practice lets you try a single park with no points at stake.
The streets are British, which means the kerb is on your left and you will hear the word "manoeuvre" more than once. The cars parked either side change from day to day. Some days there is a long estate behind the gap and a van in front, and the space is barely a metre and a half longer than you are. Other days it is roomy enough to swing in on one go.
What counts
A good park is quick, clean and close. Every park is scored as Fare times Style. The fare comes from the gap you chose and how close you finish to the kerb. Style comes from how you got there: one clean move, a kiss past a bumper, a dead straight finish. Shunts (switches between forward and reverse) and dents cost you, and your air fresheners multiply whatever you are good at. The full rules are on the how to play page, along with a routine that works on almost every street.
When you finish, the game draws your tyre tracks from above, forward moves in ink and reverse in red. It is surprisingly honest. A clean park is one smooth red curve. A nervous one looks like somebody tried to sign their name with the car.
How it is made
The game runs in your browser with no download and no sign-up. The street is drawn in 3D with a tilt-shift lens, so it looks a bit like a model village. The car follows a simple steering model based on how real cars turn around their rear axle, which is why the techniques driving instructors teach work here too.
Your results stay on your device. There are no accounts and no leaderboards that need your name. The game is supported by adverts, and you can read exactly what that involves on the privacy page.
Get in touch
Found a street you think is impossible, or a bug, or a line the examiner should say? Send a note to arbaz00@gmail.com. Every daily street has been checked by a solver before it goes out, so if you think one cannot be done, we would really like to see your tyre tracks.