After visiting LA a couple of times and watching The Californians on SNL, I wanted to be able to rattle off LA freeway directions for fun. A very reasonable thing to build a whole game around.

So I made Merge & Conversate, a little browser game for learning the freeways, neighborhoods, and slang of Los Angeles.

The highway atlas with freeway names, connections, and a 3D LA miniature

There are route quizzes, neighborhood quizzes, and a slang quiz with a “local or tourist” mode. You can match freeway numbers to their names, build routes one freeway at a time, or poke around a freeway map, highway atlas, and slang glossary.

The freeway map where you can pick a starting point and destination across Greater LA

I also added seven little Three.js miniatures, one for each mode:

  • LA landmarks and downtown traffic
  • the Four Level Interchange
  • Malibu and the Pacific Coast Highway
  • overhead freeway signs on the 405
  • a metered on-ramp with cars merging into traffic
  • a relief map of the LA basin and its freeways
  • a boulevard corner after dark, complete with a taco truck

You can spin them around, switch between daytime and nighttime, and browse all seven in the atlas.

Mostly I just want to sound convincing when I tell someone to take the 405 to the 101.

Play Merge & Conversate, or find the rest of my games in the arcade.