Turbo Pudding

AmblesteadFriday pudding

Pim, the carpenter who talks to his tools

· The Turbo Pudding team · 4 min read

Pim, a young brown pangolin with a big snout, a striped back and a teal tool belt, stands on Amabel’s gray hexagon shell in front of his workshop going up: a wooden scaffold with crossed braces around a pale half-built house, a roof tile and a bundle of golden reeds flying in, a golden glow on the plate below and gray boulders along the shell’s edge under a lilac sky

Every town needs a carpenter. The little town on Amabel’s shell got Pim, a young pangolin with a big snout, a striped back and a teal tool belt. He builds with a hammer, a saw and a little mallet, and he talks to all three. It’s Friday, so here is a light one: a few of Pim’s best lines from Mist Valley, the free first chapter, and the one tool he never talks to.

Five more minutes

Pim’s first line comes before he even knows where he is. He has curled up for a nap somewhere cozy, and he isn’t ready to get up: “Mmm. A warm, dark cave. Five more minutes.”

The cave is Amabel’s nostril. Amabel is a giant turtle, and she is fast asleep too, so for a moment everyone is happy. Then the cave sneezes. Pim’s next line is a very fair question: “Did that cave just sneeze?”

Amabel, a giant green turtle with yellow spots and a pink cheek, asleep with her eyes closed and a calm smile, and at the tip of her snout Pim, curled up into a round brown ball with scale lines, tucked against her nostril under three small gray z’s, against a lilac sky with a pale cloud
Searched “cozy puzzle game”. Found one asleep in a nose.

When Pim gets a fright, he curls up into a ball. In the game it’s a running joke, and it comes back later in a big way.

Hammer, meet saw

The first thing Pim builds is his own workshop, on level 1. The moment the roof goes on, he is delighted: “A roof! My tools finally have a home.” Then he does the introductions, the way you’d introduce two shy guests at a party: “Hammer, meet saw. Saw, meet hammer. Play nicely.”

Somebody else has an opinion about the noise. A voice comes up from below: “Oi! Who is hammering on my ceiling?” That’s Delva, a mole mechanic who lives in the tunnels under the shell’s plates. The town’s new carpenter has just built his workshop on her roof.

You choose the workshop’s finish: a scalloped clay roof, a lilac gable or a round roof in green patina. Whichever you pick, a pair of wrens moves in.

A sit-out

Next comes a lookout, on levels 2 and 3. Pim has his priorities in order: “Legs first. A lookout with no legs is a sit-out.”

On top of Amabel’s gray hexagon shell, the two tall wooden legs of the new lookout stand against a lilac sky, joined by crossed braces, beside Pim’s little yellow workshop with an orange scalloped roof, a chimney and a round window, two brown wrens at its door, and Pim, a brown pangolin with a striped back and a teal tool belt, standing in front of it with gray boulders along the shell’s edge
Typed “town building game”. Legs first. Everything else is a sit-out.

Once the lookout is up, he climbs it for the view: “From up here I can see the whole valley!” A short pause follows. “Well. The whole fog. Same thing.” It is called Mist Valley, after all.

Steady, little mallet

On levels 4 and 5, the town needs a plank bridge. Delva points at the gap: “That gap in the plates is a hundred years old.” Pim isn’t worried. “Then it has waited long enough for a bridge.”

Then he gets to work and talks the mallet through it: “Posts in. Steady, little mallet. Steady.”

Delva has to ask. “Do you always talk to your tools?”

Pim has a perfectly good reason: “They work harder when I do.”

It seems to work. A little later he hammers in the last plank: “Last plank, and done! A real bridge.”

The town on Amabel’s shell after the bridge is finished: Delva, a gray mole with round brass goggles, stands at one end of a little red wooden bridge with arched railings, Mayor Barty’s black top hat peeks over the roof of Pim’s yellow workshop, a tall lookout tower with a teal cabin, two round windows and an orange flag rises on the right with a small owl at its foot, and Pim the pangolin stands below by his workshop door with two wrens
Search history: “match 3 with a story”. Bridge: done.

The one tool he never talks to

On levels 6 and 7, Pim reaches Lichen Ridge, where a cold gray crust has crept over the plates. “This grey crust peels off like old paint,” he says, and on the board the crust turns pieces to stone.

Clear the ridge on level 6, and Pim gives you his own booster, Curl & Roll, two of them to start. On level 7 he shows you how it works, and this is where the nap in the nose comes back. You pick a line across the board, and Pim curls up into a ball and rolls along it from one edge to the other. In his own words: “I roll a whole line. Every obstacle on it takes a knock.”

Close-up of the hexagon puzzle board: Pim, curled up into a round brown ball with scale lines, rolls diagonally across purple cells with white speed lines behind him, a gray stone he has just hit cracking into small round pebbles, more gray stones with cracks along his line, and teal gears, orange roof tiles, blue glass panes, pink wool skeins and golden reed bundles in the cells around him
People also ask: “can a pangolin be a power-up?” Yes. Yes, he can.

He doesn’t clear the pieces on his line, only what stands in their way. You can hold up to three Curl & Rolls at a time. It is the one tool Pim never gives a pep talk to, because the tool is Pim.

Meanwhile, in the tunnels

Delva has her own way with tools. She works with them all day and can never quite remember what they are called. In chapter 2, she hands Pim something important: “Good. Now hold this whatsit-sprocket.”

Pim looks at it. “Delva, this is a spoon.”

Delva doesn’t miss a beat: “Then it is a very small sprocket.”

Come say hello

Mist Valley, the first chapter of Amblestead, is free to play in your browser at amblestead.com. The full game, all six chapters, is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Amblestead page.

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