Turbo Pudding

Dilly DeliversDev diary

How we write a whole street in one line

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

Day 1 in Pudding Town, on the quick way to Clover’s door: Dilly, a round yellow duckling courier in a teal cap with an envelope badge and a pink scarf, a brown parcel tied on her back, walks to the right on a lilac sidewalk just past the end of a zebra crossing, whose white stripes and gray road show at the left edge beside a curb with little yellow dots; ahead of her, four dark seeds with pale stripes float over the sidewalk in a gentle wave, and a round blue puddle waits further on; behind a white picket fence stand a lavender shop with a green-and-white striped awning and colored dots in its window and a mint house with a green door marked with a heart, and small flowers grow in the grass along the front

Every delivery in Dilly Delivers is one street, from the post office to the door of whoever is waiting for the parcel. Before any of it is drawn, that street is a single line of text. This Wednesday: how a line becomes a street, and how we check that it’s fair to a duckling.

One line, one street

Here’s the quick way to Clover’s door on the very first day, when Dilly brings flower seeds: “w2 w2 s3 w2 p1 w3 r:s w3 c1:1+z w3 s4 w3 p1 w3 w2.”

It reads left to right, the way Dilly walks, and each word takes up as many tiles as it says. A tile is our unit of length, about one and a half times Dilly’s body. “w2” is two tiles of plain sidewalk. “s3” is three seeds, which take no room at all and sit half a tile apart in a little wave. “p1” is a puddle one tile wide, plus half a tile to splash out of it. “r:s” is a small rock, about a third of a tile tall. And “c1:1+z” is a cross street with one lane, the slowest traffic in the game and a zebra crossing.

That’s Dilly at the top of this post, just off that zebra, with the seeds of “s4” and the second puddle ahead.

The houses, shops, fences and flowers aren’t in the line at all. The game dresses the street around it, the same way every time for the same delivery: houses and shops on the town way, trees, hedges and cottages on the park way. It also adds a porch at the start and the walk up to the door at the end. On the map where you pick your way, this line comes out at 53 meters. The park way to the same door is 111.

Dogs, cats and a snail

Yard dogs get a word too: “d:pup” puts a puppy’s gate at that spot. Each breed has its own size of yard: a pup guards 5 tiles, a guard dog 6 and the big dog at the end of a chapter 14. The stubby bulldog guards only 2.5, because that’s where its chain ends.

Day 2 in Pudding Town, on the quick way to Mallow’s door: Dilly, a round yellow duckling in a teal cap with an envelope badge and a pink scarf, a brown parcel on her back, walks along a lilac sidewalk with a few gold sparkles around her from the seeds she just picked up, while behind the white picket fence a stubby lavender-gray bulldog with folded ears and big purple eyes peeks out between two gate posts, a red angry mark above its head, next to a little doghouse with a red roof and a paw-print sign on a post; behind them stand a blue house with a blue door, a green house with an orange door and a purple street lamp
Searched “cute dog game.” Got a doghouse with a paw-print sign.

Some things can’t be written wrong. A dog’s chase always ends at the next cross street, because dogs never cross roads. Nobody chases Dilly into a river or off a cliff, either.

Helpers stand on the street as well. “h:cat” puts a cat on a fence post, and a dog that chases Dilly past her gets hissed at and gives up. “h:snail” is a little snail creeping along the sidewalk, just for smiles.

Day 1 on the park way in Pudding Town: Dilly, the yellow duckling courier in her teal cap and pink scarf with a parcel on her back, walks to the right along a wide sandy sidewalk toward a small snail with a lilac spiral shell, a peach body and one round dark eye, which creeps along a little way ahead of her; behind them run a white picket fence, a green lawn, a cream house with a blue door and the trunk of a round green tree
Search: “slow cozy game.” The snail heard you.

Wider streets

The street word grows. “c3:3” is three lanes at speed level 3 of 5. Each lane is a tile and a half wide, with a tile of curb on each side, and after every two lanes the game adds a narrow green island where Dilly can stop and wait. Add “+light” for traffic lights, or “+z” for a zebra. If we don’t give a street its own spacing between cars, the game picks one to match the speed.

Day 4 in Pudding Town, seen from above on a sunny day: Dilly, the yellow duckling courier in her teal cap and pink scarf with a parcel on her back, stands on a narrow green island with two small flowers in the middle of a three-lane street, while a round yellow car with big eyes and a smile drives along the lane on the far left, a peach car with a white heart on its roof passes in the lane right next to her, and a third car with heart-shaped tail lights drives off at the top of the middle lane; on the right are a curb with little yellow dots, a white picket fence and a pink house
People also ask: where does a duck wait in traffic?

A typo can’t break a street

If a word makes no sense to the game, it skips it and keeps building. Our checking tool lists every skipped word and fails the whole day until we fix it. It also holds every route to a few rules: each line starts and ends with plain sidewalk, the quick way is 45 to 65 percent as long as the park way, and the park way never gets a guard dog or a big dog.

Three test players

Days 1 to 3 are written by hand. For the rest, a tool lays out a route, plays it and keeps it only if it’s fair. Three test players live in that tool. The careful one runs on open sidewalk, hops puddles and waits for gaps. The clumsy one never runs, pauses before every jump and crossing, and is a little late now and then. Each walks every route five times. A route passes only if both always reach the door, the careful player keeps the parcel at 80 or better on average and never under 60, and the clumsy one keeps at least 40.

The third plays someone still learning: jumps off by about 80 milliseconds, sudden things noticed a quarter of a second late, extra care after a bump. Of the fair routes, the tool keeps the one where this learner loses closest to our target: 14 percent of the parcel on the quick way at the start of the game, rising to 50 by the end, and half that on the park way.

The careful player also sets the clock: a parcel’s par time is that player’s middle time of the five on the quick way. On a normal parcel, the hurry bonus is full up to 1.2 times par and gone at 2.4 times. For Clover’s flower seeds, par is 8.1 seconds.

Walk a line yourself

Chapter 1, Pudding Town, is free to play in your browser at dillydelivers.com. The full game, all six chapters, is $4.99, paid once. More on the Dilly Delivers page.

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