Turbo Pudding

AmblesteadScreenshot Saturday

Six snapshots from the road to the sea

· The Turbo Pudding team · 4 min read

Sunrise Shore in Amblestead: Amabel, a giant green turtle with yellow spots, pink cheeks and a calm half-closed smile, walks to the right along a sandy beach under a peach sky, with blue sea and pink hills behind her and shells and a starfish in the sand; her hexagon shell carries a whole packed town of little houses with orange scalloped roofs, a tall teal lookout tower with a flag, a teal horn, a water wheel, strings of pink and orange bunting, a telescope and a weathervane, with a white hare, an owl and other residents among the buildings; at the tail end, the half-built Welcome Arch glows in a yellow ring, and three gulls fly overhead

Amblestead is a town on the back of Amabel, a giant turtle walking through six landscapes toward the sea. Every level you win adds one step to a building on her shell, and ten times along the way, a glowing lot asks you a question: “What goes here?” It’s Saturday, so here are six snapshots, one answer from every chapter.

The picture at the top is Sunrise Shore, the sixth landscape. By now, the whole town rides on Amabel’s shell: houses with scalloped roofs, a tall lookout, strings of bunting and a water wheel. At the tail end, on the low terrace by the rim, the Welcome Arch glows half built. Here, the answer is the Shell Arch, and Pim explains it in one line: “Built from shells off this very beach.” The Reed Arch and the Glass Arch are the other two answers.

How a pick works

Tap the glowing lot, and three cards come up. Each one shows the outline of a building, its name and the two materials it’s made of, and those are the materials the levels for that building ask you to bring. In Mist Valley, the Lookout Tower takes reed bundles and copper cogs, the Weathervane Mast takes copper cogs and clay tiles, and the Cloud Feeder takes wool skeins and reed bundles. So a pick changes the board as well as the town.

The choice is locked in once the first step is built. When the last step goes up, a resident moves in, a different one for every answer, and someone from the cast says hello. After that, you can tap any finished building and try its three finishes. Ten questions with three answers each come to 59,049 different towns, before a single finish.

Mist Valley: the Weathervane Mast

The first question comes in the free chapter, on the crest of the shell. Delva the mole cheers the mast on: “A weathervane! It points where the wind goes.” Pim adds: “Handy. Soon we are going places too.” The resident is a sleepy bat, and Delva sums up the new neighbor in three words: “Sleeps all day.”

Mist Valley under a lilac sky: a tall teal Weathervane Mast with guy ropes rises from the crest of Amabel’s hexagon shell, topped by an arrow-shaped vane with an orange head and tail and a small teal cap; at its foot sit Delva, a gray mole with round brass goggles and pink hands, Pim, a brown pangolin with a wooden tool, and Mayor Barty, a snail with an orange spiral shell and a black top hat, with a small dark bat tucked in between them; below, a yellow workshop with an orange roof and a round window has two wrens by its door, and puffs of white smoke drift past the mast
Searched “cozy town builder puzzle.” Got a bat on a mast.

Red Canyon: the Copper Tank

In Red Canyon, the Water Tank goes up in three steps: a stand, a body and a spout. The answers are a Barrel Tower, a Clay Cistern and a Copper Tank. Here, it’s copper, and Delva approves: “A copper tank. Shiny. It rings when you knock.” A copper beetle moves in, a perfect match for the tank. Pick the Clay Cistern instead, and a water snail moves in, which Mayor Barty greets as family: “A fellow snail! Welcome, cousin.”

Red Canyon under an orange sky: a round teal Copper Tank with rivets and a tall glass gauge stands on a teal frame among little yellow houses with orange scalloped roofs, with a small teal beetle on its stand; in front stand Delva the mole in brass goggles, Pim the pangolin and Mayor Barty the snail in a top hat, while along the crest behind them runs an arched plank bridge with a hedgehog and another teal beetle, and the yellow legs of a lookout tower rise at the top
Typed “match 3 where you build a town.” This one rings.

Snow Pass: the Star Window

Snow Pass is where Nils joins the town, a white arctic hare in a red scarf with a rolled map under his arm. His room on the crest has three answers: a Map Room, a Star Window or a Sled Shed. For the Map Room, Nils has a plan: “Shelves for maps. And shelves for more maps.” For the Star Window, a reason: “Stars never get lost.” Its resident is a star moth that, according to Nils, “taps at the window all night.” The Sled Shed gets a lemming who borrows the sled every day.

Snow Pass under a pale blue sky: Nils, a white arctic hare in a red scarf with a rolled map under his arm, sits on the crest of Amabel’s hexagon shell beside the Star Window, a small teal dome with snow on top, a round window with a star in it and a gold four-pointed star on its spire, with a pale yellow star moth resting on the roof; Pim the pangolin walks along the shell beside it, and further on stand an arched bridge, brick chimneys with a robin, little houses with orange roofs and the legs of a tall lookout tower
Search: “snow puzzle game with a hare.” He brought maps.

Glass Desert: the Kite Swing

The Party Stage in the Glass Desert has the most fun answers in the game: a Drum Stage, a Puppet Stage or a Kite Swing. Delva hears the drums and thinks of Amabel: “She will feel these in her toes.” Pim sees the puppets and promises to carve a tiny Amabel. Nils does the math: “A kite swing. Mathematically, very fun.” On the board, it takes reed bundles and copper cogs. Once it’s built, the swing rocks, the kite bobs on its string, and a swift moves in. Nils’s verdict: “Showing off.”

Glass Desert under a golden sky: in the middle of a crowded town on Amabel’s shell stands the Kite Swing, a yellow A-frame with a teal knob at the top, an orange swing seat and a red and teal kite flying on a string; beside it, a dark purple swift sits with two brown larks under a striped awning, and in front stand Nils the white hare, Saffi, a fennec fox with tall ears and a teal kerchief, Pim the pangolin, Delva the mole in brass goggles and Mayor Barty the snail in a top hat; behind them are an orange brick kitchen, a little white hare kit, a pink-roofed cottage and a desert mouse sitting on a rock
People also ask: is a kite swing fun? Nils did the math.

Aurora Plain: the Telescope Deck

On Aurora Plain, the town walks at night under the northern lights, and the question on the crest is the Star Deck: a Telescope Deck, a Hammock Deck or a Chime Deck. Saffi votes for hammocks: “The sky is best watched lying down.” Nils wants the telescope: “Now I can map the sky up close.” Here, Nils wins. A night owlet moves in, and as Nils puts it, it “keeps borrowing my telescope.”

Aurora Plain at night, under a dark violet sky with faint green and lilac streaks and scattered stars: on the crest of Amabel’s shell stands the Telescope Deck, a wooden deck on teal crossed legs with a big teal telescope pointed at the sky, a small purple night owlet with yellow eyes sitting beside it and a little snail on the rail; at the far left, Nils the white hare sits with his eyes closed next to Pim the pangolin, while Mayor Barty the snail in a top hat and Saffi the fennec fox stand in the busy town to the right, past a glass tent, a pink-roofed house with a weathervane, a white owl on a post and a red bridge
Search history: “night match 3,” “owl,” “owl with telescope.”

There’s no wrong answer anywhere on the road, and Amabel carries every one of them to the sea.

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

More about Amblestead

AmblesteadThe real story

Amblestead: the real pangolins behind Pim

Pim curls into a ball, naps in dark places and knows a lot about eyelids. Here is what real pangolins are like, and which of his habits came from them.