Play Lawn Mower online

The tractor starts in the middle of the field. Press Start (or a turn key or button) and it sets off, and from then on it drives forward on its own: all you do is steer. Everything the deck, the plough or the brush passes over is cleared, as wide as the machine and no wider, so the path you leave follows every curve you drive.

There is nothing to finish and nothing to beat. The share of the field cleared and the time on the clock are only there if you want them. Ponds are frozen or wet, and the tractor slides round them; rocks give it a bump and slow it for a moment, nothing more. The trees at the edge are as far as it goes.

Fresh meadow, Fresh snow or Fresh leaves lays the field out anew, with the ponds and rocks in new places, so no two fields are the same.

The tractor drives forward by itself once the field has started, so there is no gas to hold: the left and right arrows (or A and D) steer it, and so do the two round buttons in the lower corners of the field, held down with a finger or the mouse. The Start button, Space or the up arrow starts the field without a turn, and the keys work without clicking the field first. Pause stops the tractor when you want to look.

• Left and right arrows (or A and D) steer; the tractor drives forward on its own.
• The Turn left and Turn right buttons on the field steer the same way, held down.
• Top and Chase, or C, switch between the view from above and the view behind the tractor.
• Pause, or P, stops the clock, the tractor and the sound until you carry on.
• R, or the Fresh button, lays the field out anew.
• Fullscreen, or F, fills the screen with the field; Escape or the same button leaves it.
• The map in the corner shows what is still standing.

Pick a field with the Field switch in the game's top bar; on a phone it is in the game menu (☰). All three are always open.

• Open Meadow, 112 by 80: a wide summer meadow of soft green grass under a clear blue sky. The mower presses neat stripes into it, and the clippings fly.
• Snowy Yard, 96 by 68: a yard under fresh snow on an overcast winter day, snow falling. A plough on the front of the tractor pushes it off down to the dark ground, with a clean wall of snow at the edge of every pass.
• Autumn Yard, 96 by 68: a lawn under maple, oak and birch leaves at sunset, leaves drifting down. A brush on the front sweeps them away, and the green grass comes back wherever you drive.

Each field has its own calm music, made on the spot rather than played from a recording: a warm major for the meadow, a higher, sparser one for the snow, a soft minor for the leaves. It plays while the tractor works and fades when you pause.

The work has its own sound too: a hush of cut grass, a low push of snow, a dry rustle of leaves. You hear it only while something is being cleared, and it goes quiet over ground already done. The sound switch in the top bar turns everything off.

Long straight passes with a turn at each end leave the neatest stripes, and the clean edges are half the pleasure. Nothing is lost by pausing to look at the map.

• Overlap your passes a little. A thin strip left between two passes costs an extra trip.
• Clear round the rocks and the ponds first, then the open ground.
• The chase view is the one for watching the snow wall or the leaves go; the top view is the one for planning a pattern.
• Mow a pattern, a maze, your name, or nothing in particular.