Keep Off the Grass
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Keep Off the Grass
PlayableLovely lawn. Shame if someone took a shortcut.
Keep Off the Grass is a free desire paths game about designing a park for people who would rather not take the scenic route. Draw gravel paths between gates, open the park and watch what happens. A lovely winding walkway means very little to someone who can see a quicker way across your lawn.
Every park gives you a limited gravel budget and a different set of journeys to plan for. Connect homes, libraries and other destinations while working around trees, flower beds, fountains and ponds. Shared crossings can save gravel, but an awkward detour can leave a very visible muddy shortcut where your grass used to be.
Start with Two Doors in Hometown, then tackle busier parks and Paris-inspired layouts. There are 13 parks in this version, from The Old Oak and Campus Quad to L'Étoile and Les Deux Bassins. Sketch a plan, let the pedestrians loose and redraw it until the lawn survives. No account or download needed.
How to play
Drag on the park plan to sketch gravel paths connecting the gates. Watch the remaining gravel meter: every path uses some of your budget. Use Undo to remove your last stroke or Clear to start the plan again.
Press Open park to turn your sketch into a working park. Watch the pedestrians travel between their destinations. If your paths make the trip too inconvenient, they may cut across the grass instead. You can speed up the simulation while it runs.
Read the result to see your park score, trampled grass, gravel used and detour. Choose Redraw to improve the layout or Next park to try another challenge. Open the parks menu to revisit a level and aim for three stars.
What are desire paths?
Desire paths are unofficial trails formed when people repeatedly walk the route they prefer instead of the one a designer planned. You might see one cutting diagonally across a lawn, linking two sidewalks or slipping around an inconvenient corner. They are also called desire lines, informal paths or elephant paths.
This desire paths simulator turns that everyday observation into a park-planning puzzle. Instead of telling pedestrians to stay on the path, you have to draw a path worth staying on. The game is a playful model of shortcut-seeking behavior, not a scientific prediction of how every real pedestrian will walk.
A path-drawing puzzle with a stubborn little crowd
The shortest route is not always available: ponds and monuments get in the way, and there is rarely enough gravel to connect every pair of gates directly. Look for places where routes can share a stretch or meet at a useful crossing. Busy journeys deserve particular attention.
A failed design is useful feedback. Watch where desire paths appear, then adjust your sketch to serve those trips more directly. The goal is not just to draw tidy lines. It is to balance convenient routes, a limited budget and the amount of lawn your visitors leave intact.
Thirteen parks, one increasingly nervous groundskeeper
Seven Hometown parks introduce competing routes, obstacles and busier crowds. Six Paris parks add monuments, split lawns and unusual boundaries. Each layout asks for a different answer, and the end-of-day newspaper has opinions about your work.
Best star results and your sound preference are saved locally when browser storage is available. Return in the same browser to keep those records. An unfinished drawing is not saved, and the game does not need a sign-in.
FAQ
Is Keep Off the Grass free?
Yes. All 13 parks in this version are free to play in your browser, with no download or account required.
How does the game use desire paths?
Pedestrians can abandon inconvenient gravel routes and walk across the lawn. Repeated shortcuts trample the grass, showing you where your path design does not match their journeys.
How do I get a better park score?
Reduce the amount of trampled grass. Draw convenient connections for the requested journeys, share paths where it makes sense and avoid unnecessary detours while staying within the gravel budget.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. Draw paths with your finger on a touchscreen, or use a mouse on a computer.
Does it save my progress?
The game saves your best star results and sound preference in the same browser when local storage is available. It does not save unfinished path drawings or synchronize between devices.
