This terrifying game will show you what drowning feels like

last updated 8 January 2015

If Candy Crush isn't nearly morbid enough to get your adrenaline going, then we've got a game for you. Sortie En Mer, which translates to "a trip out to sea" in English, is a drowning simulator in which players "swim" for their lives by scrolling up repeatedly to stay afloat on a choppy virtual ocean. The simulator was made by French sea-safety equipment company Guy Cotten as part of a campaign encouraging boaters to wear their life jackets.

The simulation, which uses a first-person view, starts off with the subject falling off his sailboat. Very quickly, the boat drifts away, and the man must swim for his life. While repeatedly scrolling up may seem easy at first, I can assure you that doing it for a few minutes without stopping quickly gets tiring. The game then eventually adds more true-to-life obstacles — the man kicks off his shoes to swim better, and he ends up losing his fingernails due to prolonged exposure to the water's freezing temperatures. No matter what, the man eventually drowns. "At sea you tire faster than you think," warns the post-simulation message. "Whenever you go out to sea, wear your life jacket."

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Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

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