Turbo Pudding

KettlecrestDev diary

Seven picnic tools, one rule

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

Fennel, a round brown capybara with a little tangerine on his head, sits in half a pumpkin on a green forest river holding a gray ladle, and a very long red-and-white striped straw runs from his mouth over the side of the pumpkin down into the water; an orange pennant flies behind him, a red crayfish in a straw-hat boat paddles on the left beside a big white whisk, and more boats race toward pine-covered hills

Seven of the things you find in the picnic baskets of Kettlecrest are tools: a Tow Line, a Splash Pump, a Picnic Blanket, a Flat Iron, a Ripple Rattle, a Beaver Plank and a Siphon Straw. This Wednesday’s dev diary is about how we built them, and about the one rule every tool had to pass.

The picture at the top is Fennel in Pinewood Rapids with a Siphon Straw. It’s very long and striped red and white, and it runs from his mouth over the side of his pumpkin into the river.

The rule: nothing hunts the leader

Nothing flies ahead, nothing seeks out whoever is in first place, and nothing is dropped behind you as a trap. And every tool has an answer: something the boat on the other end can do about it, if it’s quick.

So the Tow Line hooks onto a wave, not a boat. The Splash Pump hits the nearest boat beside you, within 8 meters, whether it’s ahead, behind or level. The Blanket and the Plank are laid ahead of you and open to everybody. There’s no speed boost in the baskets at all.

Tow Line

A surge that rolled past you isn’t lost. Cast the Tow Line at a crest 6 to 25 meters ahead, and the reel pulls you up the back of the wave and onto its sweet spot, where your ride begins. The answer: a boat reeling in is on a leash, and one bump snaps the line. A jet from a Splash Pump snaps it, too.

Ottilie, a brown otter in a little flat cap and a red-and-blue scarf, sits in her copper kettle boat with an orange pennant and holds up a fishing rod, its pale line arcing far ahead over the icy blue river toward the next wave; beside her floats a rival’s boat with a tin pail of green frogs aboard, gulls circle overhead, two picnic baskets drift in the air on the right, and snowy cliffs and fir trees line the bank
Searched “boat race game fishing rod.” Got a whole wave on the hook.

Splash Pump and Flat Iron

The Splash Pump shoves the boat next to you sideways with a jet. The target gets a warning first: a red line on the water and a note that says “Pump aimed: steer into the jet.” Steer into it, and the push is cut in half. Ignore it, and the jet costs you a knitted heart.

The Flat Iron is the other answer. For six seconds a big iron sits on your bow, so heavy that the boat dips its nose. The boat becomes two and a half times harder to shove, so a jet barely moves it and nobody can push it off a crest. It steers a little slower, though, and it’s no help against rocks or banks.

Brogan, a big lilac-gray hippo in a brown cap, paddles his white cast-iron bathtub down a green forest river with a huge black flat iron sitting on the bow in front of him, its gray sole sticking out past the rim and the whole tub tipped slightly nose down; an orange pennant flies behind him, pine-covered hills rise on both banks, and three rival boats race through the spray further down the river
Typed “racing game with a flat iron.” Brogan brought the biggest one.

Ripple Rattle

The Rattle is a wooden ratchet that the hero whirls over their head. Shake it just before a surge arrives, and for twelve seconds the sweet spot on the wave is 40 percent wider, so it’s much harder to slip off. Shake it during a ride, and it adds two seconds to the ride instead.

The first Rattle made the sweet spot 60 percent wider and added four seconds. In testing, a boat with nothing but Rattles in its baskets beat the usual mix of tools by up to 22 points of wins on Flood, the highest river level. So we cut it back.

Juno, a little blue kingfisher chick in round goggles and a yellow headband, rides an upturned umbrella on a glacier river, holding a tennis racket, while a green wooden ratchet on a long brown handle spins high above her head; on the right a rival’s boat carries a giant black flat iron on its bow, on the left a tin pail of goggle-eyed green frogs sits in a wooden boat, and behind them a stork in a nightcap rows a dresser drawer past icy cliffs
People also ask: why is that kingfisher shaking a rattle?

Picnic Blanket and Beaver Plank

Some shortcuts stay shut until somebody opens them. A mud bar slows every boat, and a Picnic Blanket spread over it makes it ordinary water for six seconds. A rock garden is shut on all sides by low boulders, with two beaver-gnawed stumps at its upstream corners. Lay a Beaver Plank, and a deck of boards unrolls over the stones for six seconds. Whoever gets on rides it to the end.

The Plank adds no speed, only a shorter line, and it gives that line to the boats behind you too. That’s why good racers lay it at the last moment. Burl, the beaver, always does.

Burl, a brown beaver in a yellow knitted hat with a white pompom and a green scarf, rows his hollow log boat with a wooden oar across a wide deck of light brown boards laid over the river, an orange pennant flying behind him; beyond the deck the green water runs past a gnawed stump at the deck’s corner, a hippo and a crayfish race in the distance, and pine trees line the far bank
Search: “boat race game shortcut over rocks.” Burl built one.

Siphon Straw

The Long River has a smooth, glossy band of fast water running down it. The Siphon Straw bends it. For four seconds, the fast water curves over to your line, from 15 meters behind you to 25 meters ahead, easing back at both ends. The answer: if someone bends it out from under you, get on its new line.

Drawing it took two tries. A wide bent band looked like a stripe of paint across the river, so now it’s a narrow, light ridge with little streaks running toward the straw.

How we test a tool

To check the rule in numbers, we wrote a small test. It runs the same race 120 times with the computer at every paddle, ours included, fills all our baskets with one tool and compares the results with the usual mix. A tool fails if it beats the mix by more than half a place on average, or by more than 20 points of wins.

The Rattle failed, and we fixed it. The Flat Iron looked like a fail on Flood after 60 races, at nearly 22 points, but after 120 it came out at 14. Sixty races were simply too few to tell, so every test now runs 120.

Glacier Gate and Pinewood Rapids, all seven tools included, are free to play in your browser at kettlecrest.com. The full game, all six reaches to the sea, is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Kettlecrest page.

More about Kettlecrest

KettlecrestScreenshot Saturday

Kettlecrest: postcards from the Long River

One hero from each reach of the river: a crayfish in a straw hat on Kettle Lake, a heron in a violin case, a beaver at the sluice gates and more.