Turbo Pudding

FernevaleScreenshot Saturday

Six snapshots from Riga to the mountains

· The Turbo Pudding team · 4 min read

The third-class stern of a steamer near the equator, with a teal sea behind the white rail: Daina, a girl with long dark braids and a pencil behind her ear, in a white blouse with a sailor collar, a green skirt and a dark cape tied round her waist, stands by a tub of seawater; beside the tub a barber in a white cap and apron holds a big wooden razor; on the right, Neptune, a man in a long rope beard and a tin crown, sits in a blue robe on a throne of crates with a mop for a trident, and next to him a cook in a tall white hat holds out a ladle with Pudding, a small brown hedgehog, sitting in it; behind them stand the purser’s cabin with a board of telegrams and the white galley with ladles on hooks

Fernevale starts in a sanatorium in Surrey, but Daina doesn’t stay there long. The later chapters take her home to Riga, across Courland by motorcar and over the whole Atlantic to Brazil. For this Screenshot Saturday, here are six places she passes through, one frame each.

The picture at the top is chapter 7, Crossing the Line. It’s white noon on 1 December 1911, near the equator, on the third-class stern of the Südstern. Somebody has rigged a tub of seawater and a throne of crates, and nobody will say what for. Then Pudding, Daina’s hedgehog, slips out of his hatbox and follows his nose to the galley, and the cook comes up the ladder with Pudding sitting in his ladle, wet and offended. “Hedgehog in the galley!” the cook shouts. “Who ordered hedgehog?” Daina: “He ordered himself.”

Behind the cook comes Neptune’s court: a King in a rope beard and a tin crown, with a mop for a trident, and a Barber with a wooden razor. The King wants a toll, or a shave. Daina has no money, so she has to think of something else. Her verdict on His Majesty: “Neptune has the second mate’s eyebrows.”

Riga customs: two calendars

Chapter 3 is called Old Style, and the name is a clue. Daina steps into a plank customs shed on the Riga quay at dawn, with frost on the boards and an orange stove inside. “Home,” she says. “It’s smaller than I remembered. And exactly the right size.”

Behind the high counter sits Kalniņš, the customs officer, in a green cap and pince-nez. Two calendars hang on the wall behind him, and they don’t agree. The steamship line’s calendar says November 1911, with the 5 circled in pencil. The tear-off block says 23 and October. Riga keeps the old style, thirteen days behind the ship’s calendar, so by the paper on the wall, Daina hasn’t arrived yet. Kalniņš explains: “In body. On paper, you are somewhere off Gotland.”

A plank customs shed in Riga at dawn, in warm browns: behind a high wooden counter stands Kalniņš, a round customs officer with a gray mustache, pince-nez and a green uniform cap and coat, in front of a row of pigeonholes; on the wall above him hang a Wilson Line calendar for November 1911 with a little steamer at the top and the 5 circled, and a tear-off calendar with a big red 23 over X · 1911 and a row of tiny moons; a folded newspaper marked 23/5 and a rubber stamp sit on the counter; in front of it stands Daina, a girl with long dark braids, a pencil tucked behind her ear, a navy ulster coat, a little navy toque and a brown satchel; on the left, Mrs Pym, an old lady in glasses, dozes on a bench with knitting in her lap beside a pale round hatbox, and on the right stands Teo in a cap, a leather jacket and a yellow scarf
Searched “point and click game 1911.” Which 1911, though?

The garage: asleep at his post

Chapter 6, Second Gear, begins at night in a plank garage “warm as a loaf.” A pot-bellied stove glows red with bricks in its mouth, which are Teo’s foot-warmers. The green Russo-Balt waits under a paraffin lamp with frost on its hood. And Teo, the chauffeur who is supposed to be guarding it, is asleep in the back seat. Daina’s summary: “Guarding the car. Asleep in it.”

She needs to get to Libau, on the coast, before eight. The car has to be warmed up first, and so does Teo. Call his name, and all he says is “...magneto...” Her grandmother Omīte’s basket already sits on the running board, with a cloth over it and a note on the knot. “She knew before I did.”

A plank garage at night, lit gold by a single paraffin lamp: a green open motorcar with big spoked wheels, a brass headlamp and frost on its hood fills the middle, and in its back seat Teo sleeps sitting up with his head thrown back and his mouth open, a red rug over his knees and one gaitered leg hanging over the side; a wicker basket under a white cloth rides on the running board; in front of the car stands Daina in a red knitted kerchief, a brown coat, mittens and a long green skirt, her braids over one shoulder, facing right; on the left a black pot-bellied stove glows orange with bricks in its mouth, and on the right hangs a rack of tools
Typed “cozy adventure game old car.” The driver is napping.

Libau: a cow in the air

The same chapter ends on the quay at Libau at dusk, with snow grains in the lamplight. A small black steamer for Hamburg has its smoke up, and a crane is swinging something aboard. It’s a cow, in a sling. “A cow, craned aboard,” Daina says. “She looks how I feel.”

A gendarme stands in his striped box, and Daina sees “a cuckoo clock.” And at the foot of the gangway stands Vītols, her father’s clerk, with her father’s list in his hand, reading every face that goes by. Teo, meanwhile, is kicking a tire “that owes him money.”

The quay at Libau at dusk under an orange and violet sky with a few snowflakes: a cow hangs in midair in a sling from a crane over the bow of a small black steamer with round lit portholes; in the middle stands Daina in a red kerchief with driving goggles pushed up on top, a yellow scarf, a brown coat and a green skirt; beside her a gendarme in a gray greatcoat and a tall cap stands in front of his black and white striped box, a young clerk in a dark hat and coat waits by the gangway, and the purser in a dark coat stands under a black umbrella by a little table with a lamp; on the far left, Teo stands by the green motorcar, and a lamppost glows between the roofs of the town and its tall church spire
People also ask: why is there a cow in the air?

The ford: the river wins

By chapter 9, The Mountain with a Hole, Daina is up in the mountains of Brazil, in a linen dress, with Bento and his mules. It’s 27 December, and the trail runs down to a river below a waterfall. The way across should be a ford. Daina tries it: “Knee-deep. Then thigh-deep. Then no.”

Bento looks at the sky and gives the forecast in six words: “Rain by three. River by four.” There’s a ferry here, if it works. Watch the stones by the water, too. Something there is laughing at her boots.

A misty river canyon in soft green and gray: a thin white waterfall pours down a mossy gray cliff into a wide teal river dotted with dark stones; on a strip of red earth by the bank stands Bento, a man with a mustache in a wide brown hat and a brown jacket, holding a round green gourd, and beside him stands Daina in a long white linen dress with a broad collar, her dark braids over her shoulder and a pencil behind her ear, looking out at the water; a dark fern frond hangs in from the top left, and a brown toolbox sits on the stony bank at the right
Search history: “adventure game Brazil,” then “how deep is a ford.”

The pass: a rock with a hole

Higher up, the trail ends on a pass at sunset, and this is where the chapter gets its name. There’s grass up to Daina’s knees, “and every seed head lit up like a candle.” Four cairns of flat stones stand in the grass. Teimosa the mule has already found “the best grass on the mountain. Naturally.” Daina calls Bento, with his fire and his gourd, “a whole house in a poncho.”

Above them all stands a tall rock with a hole right through it. “A rock with a hole,” Daina says. “Sky through it.” From each cairn, the hole looks a little different. Which one matters is up to you to find.

A mountain pass at sunset under a peach and pink sky, with layers of blue-violet ridges behind: on the right a tall gray rock with an arched hole near the top stands against the sky; in the golden grass in front, four cairns of flat gray stones stand in a row; Daina, in her long white linen dress, stands beside a ring of stones with crossed sticks for a fire, facing right toward the rock; to her left stands Bento in his wide brown hat with a green gourd in his hand, and at the far left Teimosa, a gray-brown mule with a pack saddle, looks on
Search: “hand-drawn game sunset.” Found a rock with a window.

All six of these places are in the full 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 its Fernevale page.

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