Turbo Pudding
It’s Friday, so here’s something about Fluffenders you hear rather than see. The game has no sound files at all. Every bubble, yawn and grumble is played live in your browser by a little set of toy instruments we built in code: a music box, a kalimba, a plucked string, a toy drum, a kazoo and one very sleepy tuba.
The picture at the top is night 10. Big Grumbo has his pillow mallet up over a Woolly. Lifting it has a sound of its own, a slide whistle going up with a tiny, effortful “hnnn” underneath. The smash is a toy “bonk” and a spring, with no heavy thump, and the Woolly hops home to the burrow with an “eep! eep!” Nobody in Fluffenders ever gets hurt, and nothing ever sounds like it, either.
Every Grump yawns in tune
The battle songs are written in A minor pentatonic, a scale of just five notes. When a Grump dozes off, you hear a soft yawn, and then a single music-box note picked from those same five. However many Grumps fall asleep, and whenever they do, each one adds a note that fits the song.
The Grumps once asked the Fluffs not to sing Big Grumbo a lullaby. The game ignores them and sings a little one to every single Grump, one note at a time.
A golden Rolly makes the most of it. It goes off with a big round “poof!”, again with no thump, and puts a whole cluster of Grumps to sleep at once. Then the yawns come in, a few at a time. We let at most three yawns sound together, so even a crowd dozing off stays a lullaby and never turns into noise.
Hm-hmph
The Grumps have a voice of their own, and it’s mostly complaints. A Grump arriving on the lawn says “hm-hmph,” two or three nasal little blips, grumpy but toy-like. A Grump nibbling a Fluff goes “nom-nom.” A Pillow Grump that loses its pillow lets out a cross “hmph!” a fifth higher, with a puff of steam. And when a Kettle Grump’s kettle finally bounces off, it goes “ting-a-ling.”
The Grumps even have their own theme. It grumbles downhill in tiny steps, then lands on a cranky “hmph, hmph, HMPH.” Their sleepy toy tuba plays it, a muted tone that scoops up from below with a lazy wobble and closes off like “bwohm.”
A squeak for every Fluff
A Fluff placed on the lawn lands with a soft “plop” in the grass, then gives a happy squeak in its own voice. Achoo Kitty breathes in, “a… a… a…”, in step with her swelling, and then comes a squeaky “kchu!” and a shower of sparkles. Out in the Whispering Woods, the voices get stranger. Lumi Firefly goes “ting-a-ling,” the Owlet goes “hoo-hoo,” the Snail asks a slow, sleepy “mmm-hm?” and Prickles Hedgehog sniffs three times. Whoosh Fox yips, Stumpy Beaver goes “chk-chk-hup!” and Huggy Koala says a soft “mm-mwah.”
Yawny Sloth says a long, sleepy “hmmm-aah.” Its yawn cloud sounds just like a yawn, a soft, airy “haaa-awm” sliding down, and it rolls right through planks and pillows.
A band that grows with the wave
The battle music is built in layers, and it listens to the lawn. The calm base never stops: a warm pad, a round bass, a kalimba on the off-beats and the tune on a music box. When Grumps are about, a toy drum, finger snaps and a shaker join in. When a lot of them get close, a plucked counter-melody slips in between the beats.
And when a huge wave comes, led by a Flag Grump, it’s a toy marching band: melodica, tambourine, triangle, a soft gong every four bars and the tune an octave higher, with the Grumps’ kazoo choir on top. The wave itself is announced by the Grumps’ theme with a tick-tock woodblock march under it. Layers change only on a bar line, so the music never stumbles. They come in right away, and they leave only after two calmer bars.
The other nights have their own sound. In the woods, the same layers play in a slightly different scale, with a wooden flute on the tune, a kalimba under it and a cricket somewhere far off. On Big Grumbo’s night, the tuba grumbles the Grumps’ theme and the Fluffs answer with the battle tune. And on Grumbelda’s night, a wobbly theremin croons the Grumps’ theme two octaves above the tuba.
Small things we fussed over
Tap where a Fluff can’t go, and you get a gentle little “nuh-uh,” never a buzzer. Grab stardust quickly, and each pickup climbs one step up the scale, so a fast streak plays a rising tune. The stars on the win screen light up one by one, each a step higher. Even the volume sliders are tuned, so the middle of the slider really sounds like the middle.
The first two nights of Fluffenders are free to play in your browser at fluffenders.com. The full game, all twenty nights, is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Fluffenders page.
