Free boat games

What makes a good boat game

A boat game puts you on the water, and the water changes how everything moves. A hull does not stop when you let go of the keys: it drifts, swings wide through a turn and rides the swell. Wind matters too, because crossing the breeze is quick and sailing into it is slow. That sense of weight and momentum is what the games on this page share, whether you are racing, trading, defending a harbour or diving under the waves.

The seven games here come from six categories. There is a speedboat racer, two strategy games about ports and trade routes, a pirate sailing adventure, a tower defence game with a sea lane, an underwater shooter and an artillery puzzle aimed at pirate ships. Some are over in a few minutes; others run for many sessions as your fleet or your port grows.

Boat games to start with

For something fast, Turbo Boats is a top-down speedboat race over three laps against four rivals. You carve through buoy gates to fill the turbo meter, jump off ramps and dodge shoals and shipping on a harbour, a narrow city canal and the open sea, or race your own ghost in Time Trial. Deep Blaster takes you under the surface in a little yellow submarine whose bubble cannon fires on its own, so you steer, grab air pockets before the oxygen runs out and fire torpedoes at the boss at the bottom of each of its five seas.

Pirate Cove gives you a small pirate ship and an open archipelago of eight islands. You ride the wind, fire broadsides at the navy, dig up buried treasure and follow nine short quests to the Kraken's trench. Fort Cannon turns things round: you sit in a cliff fort, drag back to aim, watch the arc bend in the wind and knock cardboard pirate hulls apart across sixty levels. Reef Raiders is tower defence with two routes at once, a sea lane through the reef and a beach path, so you build towers on rocks and jetties to keep all twenty lanterns of the lighthouse village burning.

If you prefer to plan, Trade Winds starts you with a sloop and a few coins: buy spice where it is cheap, sail it past squalls and pirates in the fog, and sell where it is scarce, knowing every crate you move shifts the price. Harbor Tycoon is about the port itself, from the first plank dock to cranes, sheds, markets and a lighthouse, while seasons move prices and storms roll in.

Steering, aiming and building on any screen

On a keyboard the arrow keys or WASD steer in Turbo Boats, Pirate Cove and Deep Blaster. Space is the turbo in Turbo Boats and a torpedo in Deep Blaster, and in Pirate Cove J and K fire to the left and right side of the ship. The strategy games are played with the mouse: click an island to set a course in Trade Winds, pick a tool and click a tile in Harbor Tycoon, click a pad to build in Reef Raiders. P pauses and M mutes in all of them.

All seven games work on a phone or tablet. You drag to steer in Turbo Boats and Deep Blaster, Pirate Cove has a stick on the left and fire buttons, and in Fort Cannon you pull back from the cannon with a finger. Pinch to zoom the chart in Trade Winds and the coast in Harbor Tycoon. A tip for the racers: start your turns early, because a boat keeps sliding after you steer.

Frequently asked questions