Turbo Pudding

FernevaleFriday pudding

A hedgehog called Pudding

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

The sanatorium garden at dusk under a purple sky: Daina, a girl with a long dark braid and a yellow pencil behind her ear, in a long brown coat, throws up her hands in surprise beside a sign that reads ARAUCARIA 1871, while at her feet a small brown hedgehog with its eyes squeezed shut is caught mid-sneeze on the path; behind them a big heap of red, orange and yellow leaves with sticks poking out of it sits by a wooden fence

We’re a studio called Turbo Pudding, so sooner or later a Friday pudding about a hedgehog called Pudding was bound to happen. Pudding travels with Daina from England to Riga, asleep in a hatbox nearly the whole way, and he still manages to steal a scene wherever they go.

The picture at the top is the sanatorium garden at dusk, by the big leaf heap. Pudding has just sneezed, and Daina is halfway to “Bless you.”

A lodger in the bonfire

Pudding’s story starts in chapter 1, in a sanatorium garden in Surrey in 1911. Hatch, the gardener, has his orders: “Burn them leaves tonight, Doctor says. Only there’s a lodger.” Daina hears the lodger before she sees him. “The leaf heap is snoring.” And a little later, more worried: “Still snoring. It doesn’t know it’s a bonfire.”

Their first meeting doesn’t go well. “Ow! A hedgehog. A cross one.” Once she’s had a proper look, Daina sums him up: “You’re not a pudding. You’re a pincushion with opinions.” And he won’t stay out of the heap, either: “He keeps going back to the heap, like a man into a burning house for his hat.”

Then comes the sneeze. Pudding sniffs at the red earth on Daina’s heel and sneezes. “Bless you.” Then: “He sneezed at the red earth. As if it smelled of somewhere else.” We won’t say more about the red earth. It matters.

Our favorite Pudding moment is the quietest one. Daina strokes him. “Ow.” And then, as the spines go down under her palm: “...Oh. They lie down. He’s letting me.”

Every hedgehog in Somerset

Hatch is the one who gives him a name, and the reasoning is very Hatch: “Pudding, I call ’im. Every hedgehog in Somerset’s called Pudding. Saves confusion.” Daina’s answer is half a joke and half a plan: “Pudding. He’ll fall asleep in a hatbox and wake up in another country.”

That’s pretty much what happens. Before the trip even starts, he’s already part of the sanatorium’s night sounds. As Daina’s weeks of rest go by, one of her notes reads: “Day 4. Milk. Rest. Milk. Pudding snores in the wardrobe. Sister says it’s the pipes.”

The snoring hatbox

From chapter 2 on, Pudding rides in a hatbox. In the inventory, it’s called simply “Hatbox (snoring).” Look at it, and Daina says: “The hatbox is snoring. I have decided not to find that strange.” Try to use it on the wrong thing, and the answer is: “Pudding says no. Pudding says it in hedgehog.”

He always snores at the worst possible moment. In chapter 2, Daina is keeping very still while the Sister’s lamp comes her way, and the hatbox on her knees lets out a long, contented snore. “Who’s there?” Another snore. A long pause, and then the Sister decides: “...Hedgehogs.” Daina: “Pudding. You absolute brick.”

Later, Daina rides a milk train through the night, alone except for the hatbox on the seat beside her. Something odd happens outside, and she turns fast. “Did you see that?” The hatbox snores. “No. You never see anything after ten either.”

A dim train compartment lit by a single lamp: Daina, a girl with a long dark braid and a yellow pencil tucked behind her ear, sits on a long dark green bench in a dark cape and lace-up boots, one hand resting on her knee, and looks across at a round pinkish hatbox with a dark red stripe that sits on the bench beside her; above them, the bottom of a big black window frame in polished wood
Searched “adventure game with a pet.” The pet is asleep in a hatbox.

A choir at sea

Chapter 3, part of the full game, takes Daina out of Hull on a steamer. On the quay, Mrs. Pym is asleep in her bath chair in the rain, and it turns out she and Pudding snore a third apart, in a little two-part harmony. Daina: “She and Pudding snore in harmony. I’ve found a choir.” Out at sea, Daina admits: “Even the cat’s in tune. Everyone on this boat is in a choir but me.”

On deck, Mrs. Pym’s luggage hangs over the hold in a cargo net, with the hatbox right on top. Teo, a young fitter carrying a case of magnetos home, takes one look: “...Your hatbox is snoring.” Daina: “He’s very tired. He’s had a dreadful week.” And a little later, Teo: “Pudding has views.” Daina: “Pudding always has views.”

The deck of a steamer under a dark sky: on the left, Daina in a long blue coat, a navy cap and a satchel, her braid over her shoulder, stares up wide-eyed at a cargo net that hangs from a wooden boom over the open hold, packed with trunks and cases, a green one marked MAGNETO, and a round pale hatbox with a red stripe on the very top; on the right, Teo, a tall young man in a backwards cap, a brown leather jacket and a mustard scarf, stands on the planks in front of a black steam winch with a red wheel and a pressure gauge, and a gray striped cat peeks in at the right edge
Typed “point and click games with a hedgehog.” Found one over the hold.

Even the port customs in Riga gets the treatment. The officer asks, “Anything to declare?” The hatbox snores. Daina: “One hedgehog. English. Asleep.” “Hedgehogs are not on my list.” Then, after a pause: “...Declared.”

How we draw him

We drew Pudding a touch over life size, about a tenth of Daina’s height. Any smaller, and he’d get lost on the garden path. At this size, you spot him at her heels at a glance.

He’s built as a four-footed animal. He trots on diagonal legs, his nose twitches about four times a second, and every few seconds he looks around. The sneeze is a little performance of its own: a breath in with the head back, then the whole hedgehog jumps. Asleep, all of him breathes on a slow, steady cycle, and the snores you hear are made in your browser while you play, like all the other sounds in the game.

The sanatorium garden on a gray, drizzly morning: Daina stands on the left in a long dark gray coat with a wide collar, her eyes closed in a smile, next to a small sign that reads ARAUCARIA 1871; a small brown hedgehog trots along the path in front of her toward a big heap of red, orange and yellow leaves with sticks poking out of it; on the right, Hatch, an old gardener in a flat cap, a white shirt and a green apron, leans on a spade with a robin perched on its handle, beside a wheelbarrow, a wooden gate and a garden shed
People also ask: how big is a hedgehog in a video game?

The garden and the milk train are in the free part of the game: the prologue and chapters 1–2 are free to play in your browser at fernevale.com. The full game is $9.99, paid once. More about the game is on the Fernevale page.

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