Turbo Pudding
Granny Hoot is the owl who shows you the ropes in Fluffenders, and she works by two rules written at the top of her code: her hints never stop the game, and they never ask you to press “OK.” This Wednesday, how she teaches while the night goes on.
One line at a time
A hint is a cream strip at the bottom of the screen, with Granny Hoot’s portrait bobbing at one end and a single line of text. Taps go straight through it, so it never covers a Fluff you want to reach. Only one line is up at a time. Lines about a step wait until you do it, and the others fade on their own after a few seconds.
Granny Hoot doesn’t speak. She babbles: four to six soft blips from a five-note scale, each sliding up a touch, the last one sliding down like the end of a sentence. Blips instead of a voice work in all 11 languages.
The first night, step by step
On the very first night, the game waits for you. No stardust falls and no Grumps come until you are ready. Granny Hoot says “Tap the Bubbun card!” and a bouncy yellow arrow points at it. Tap it, and it’s “Now tap the grass to place it!”, with the arrow on a spot on the lawn.
Stardust starts falling about a second after the Bubbun lands: “Tap the falling stardust to collect it!” Next comes “Collect stardust to place more Bubbuns!”, and the moment you have enough for one, “Place another Bubbun!” Seven seconds after the second Bubbun, the Grumps set off. When the first one arrives, she adds: “A Grump! Bubbles make it sleepy.”
If a small hand drops the card halfway, the arrow goes back to it. If a player only watches, the Grumps come anyway after a minute. Replaying a won night skips the steps.
One new friend, one new line
After that, a night that brings a new Fluff opens with one line about it, the arrow on its card. “Put Woolly in front to block Grumps!” “Gulpy Frog gulps a Grump, then naps.” On night 6 it’s “Dozy Mole needs time to wake up!” The mole costs 25 stardust and naps underground for 14 seconds before it’s ready to pop up, BOING, under the first Grump.
In the second chapter, the Whispering Woods, a Fluff’s line comes the first time you take it into battle, once per save. If two friends are new at once, the newest goes first, and the other waits about 14 seconds for a quiet moment.
New Grumps in the woods get one line too, the first time they show up. “Diggers pop up here! Try Prickles or Moles,” says Granny Hoot, and the arrow lands on the exact spot where the Digger will climb out. Grumbelda gets the most useful line of all.
“Grumbelda! When her pot bubbles, a spell comes!” The glow tells you which one. A warm orange glow with blobs of cocoa means a cocoa splash, lavender with sparkles means more Grumps are about to hop out, and pale white puffs mean mist.
Nudges when something goes wrong
She also keeps an eye on the lawn. From the third wave on, if you have fewer than three Twinkle Mice and less than 100 stardust, she says “More Twinkle Mice means more stardust!”, once a night. On the first three nights, tapping a card you can’t afford gets a quick “Not enough stardust yet!” And the first time a Rolly rolls to the rescue, she sums it up: “Rolly saved the day! One per row.”
None of this is scary. When a Grump nibbles a Fluff, the Fluff isn’t hurt. It gets startled and hops home to the burrow with a little tear.
Lose a night, and Granny Hoot gives one tip that fits what went wrong. If a floater drifted all the way in, for example, it’s “Owlets throw pinecones up at floating Grumps.” If four or more stardust faded on the grass, it’s “Collect every stardust before it fades away.” If the row the Grump came down had fewer than two shooters, it’s “Two shooters in a row stop a Grump twice as fast.”
Prizes and tools
At the end of a night, the last sleepy Grump leaves a prize glowing on the lawn. On nights 1 and 2, Granny Hoot says “Tap the prize to grab it!” From night 3 on, only the arrow points at it.
Night 4’s prize is the Pillow Pal, a tool that sends a Fluff home for a nap and frees its spot. Its line waits until about 25 seconds into the first night you can use it, and only if Granny Hoot isn’t already saying something: “Pillow Pal sends a Fluff home to rest.”
The save remembers which one-time tips you have already seen, and those never come back.
Meet Granny Hoot
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.
