Swivelhead
Swivelhead puts you on the footpath in first person and asks the only question that matters: can you get to the other side. The mouse turns your head, so the habit every child is taught — stop at the kerb, look right, look left, look right again, then walk — is something you physically do rather than something you are told. The traffic is a real simulation: cars keep their distance, brake at a rate a car can actually brake at, and take longer to stop in the wet. Cross between parked cars and the van genuinely hides the road. Wait at a zebra and most drivers stop for you, but not all of them do. Then the roads get harder and the rules move under you: a four-arm roundabout where you cross an arm rather than the circle, a British pelican whose flashing figure means the opposite of what it looks like, and an American intersection where a car may legally turn across your crossing on a red light while its driver looks the other way. Every crossing is scored on the decision you made at the kerb — a two-second gap you got away with is still marked as a two-second gap, because "I made it" is exactly the reasoning the game exists to interrupt. Nothing is ever depicted: mistime it and the tyres screech, the screen flashes white, and you are back on the kerb with a line about what to do differently.
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