Play in your browser: openbeach.app

Open the page and drop your own Beach Life disc image (.iso).
It works on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android, in any modern browser.

No stars yet: be the first to star OpenBeach.

OpenBeach

An open reimplementation of Beach Life (Deep Red Games / Eidos, 2002), the beach-resort management game, written in C++20 with SDL3. It runs on Windows, on Linux and in the browser, and has a headless simulation that plays whole scenarios without a window, graphics or sound.

What you need

Apart from the screenshots above, the repository contains no assets of the original game (no graphics, music, video, texts or scenario data). To play the original scenarios you need your own copy of Beach Life: an installed copy or the disc image. A converter reads it once and writes open formats (JSON, PNG, OGG) that the game loads; old saves convert too (game data).

The game also ships a small scenario of its own, the L0 pack: a minimal map and building set that needs no original data. It is what the automated tests use, and it runs on the same mechanics as the full scenarios (L0 tests).

Download

Every release has a Windows x64 zip and a Linux x86-64 tarball (glibc 2.35+: Debian 12, Ubuntu 22.04 and later). Unpack it and follow README.txt (in the six languages of the game): drag your copy onto Import.cmd (import.sh on Linux) once, then start Play.cmd. AGENTS.md beside it tells an AI agent how to do it for you (release archives).

Building and running

Details and the WebAssembly build: building.

Windows

Windows 10/11 needs Visual Studio 2026 with "Desktop development with C++", Python 3.11+, PowerShell 7 and Git.

./build.ps1                                  # x64 Debug (./build.ps1 -Config release for RelWithDebInfo)
$bin = "./build/x64/bin/Debug"
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force run/packs/base, run/remaster | Out-Null
& $bin/obl-convert.exe import "<your Beach Life folder>" run/packs/base      # converts your copy, about 15 minutes
& $bin/obl-convert.exe resources "<your Beach Life folder>" run/remaster     # window icon and cursors
& $bin/OpenBeach.exe --game-dir run      # play

Linux

x86-64 Linux needs Clang, CMake, Ninja, Python 3 and Git, plus SDL's X11 or Wayland development packages for a real window.

OBL_SIM_SKIP_CONVERSION=1 bash tools/obl_sim_linux.sh -DOBL_LINUX_WINDOWED=ON   # Debug build
bin=build/linux-sim-x64/bin
mkdir -p run/packs/base run/remaster
$bin/obl-convert import "<your Beach Life folder>" run/packs/base      # converts your copy
$bin/obl-convert resources "<your Beach Life folder>" run/remaster     # window icon and cursors
$bin/OpenBeach --game-dir run      # play

Window or borderless fullscreen, window scale, frame cap and the intro movie are set in run/openbeach.ini (settings); the resolution is changed in game under Options -> Video. More on starting the game and the hidden/headless modes: running the game.

The browser version imports your own copy in the page and keeps it on your machine: browser build.

Documentation

Start at docs/index.md. Tests are described in unit tests.

Repository layout

Directory	Content
src/core, src/common	portable helpers without game concepts
src/game	the game modules and the simulation core
src/platform	Windows/SDL backends and host services
src/testing	the scripted-test interpreter and headless simulation
src/launcher	OpenBeach.exe (the game)
tests/	game test scripts, unit tests, tool tests, golden references
tools/	build, test and data scripts
docs/	documentation
assets/logo/	the OpenBeach logo: full (openbeach-logo.svg), mark alone, wordmark alone

Licence

GPL-3.0-or-later; the text is in LICENSE. Third-party components and their licences: THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Beach Life is a trademark of its rights holders. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.