Turbo Pudding

KettlecrestMeet the cast

Meet the river folk of Kettlecrest

· The Turbo Pudding team · 4 min read

Ottilie, a brown otter with a cream chest, a red scarf and a copper kettle lid worn as a hat, paddles a big copper kettle with a wooden spoon, its spout pointing forward, a yellow pump and an orange pennant aboard, on a pale blue meltwater river between snowy banks, ice cliffs and pine trees, with the other boats far behind

Every summer the Big Melt sends great surges down the Long River, and the river folk race them to the sea. The prize is simple: “Whoever rings the Sea Bell first gets to name the summer.” This summer, Dame Dambury has built five dams, and she wants the river “as still as a mirror.”

Luckily, Fennel remembers an old river rule. Ring the bell on a dam in the top three, and the dam must open. As Ottilie puts it: “Five dams, five bells. Ha! Let’s go and get wet.” Here is who is racing to ring them.

Ottilie and her copper kettle

Ottilie the otter was born on this river, and she wants its rapids back. She races in a copper kettle, wears its lid as a hat and paddles with a wooden spoon. Her kettle is a little of everything: steady in the turns, middling in a shove, even on a crest. A win sounds like this: “Ha! First at the bell, and only a little wet.”

Fennel keeps everyone calm

Fennel the capybara came because his friends did. Somebody has to keep everyone calm, and he takes the job seriously, right down to the tangerine balanced on his head. He floats in half a pumpkin and paddles with a ladle. Even winning doesn’t rattle him: “Oh. I won? Everyone, breathe. Nice and easy.”

Fennel, a round brown capybara with a small tangerine and a green leaf balanced on his head, sits in half a pumpkin with a cream inside and a green rind, holding a ladle as a paddle, with a yellow pump aboard and an orange pennant flying behind him, a pine forest on the bank, misty green hills ahead and the other boats far behind
Searched “racing game with animals”. Got a capybara in a pumpkin.

His pumpkin is heavy and sits deep on a surge, which means a wider sweet spot and a softer drop.

Juno wants an audience

Juno is a kingfisher chick who wants the whole river to see her ride a surge. Twice. She sails in an upturned umbrella, paddles with a tennis racket and wears diving goggles pushed up on her head. Her line after a win: “Did you see that? Tell me you saw that!”

Juno, a small blue kingfisher chick with an orange belly, a black beak, a swept-back blue tuft and diving goggles pushed up on her head, paddles an upturned umbrella with its hooked handle sticking up, a coil of rope and an orange pennant aboard, on a pale blue meltwater river between snowy banks, ice cliffs and pine trees, a capybara in a pumpkin boat far behind her
Search: “boat racing game”. Juno’s boat is an umbrella.

Her umbrella is featherlight and turns as if it were riding a leaf, but it has a narrow sweet spot and drops into a surge hard.

Brogan, the hippo blacksmith

The dams flooded Brogan’s forge, and he is here to open them, one by one. He sits in a cast-iron bathtub in a leather apron and a flat cap and paddles with a shovel. On the Jetty, where you pick your hero, his weight is a stack of five river pebbles, with the word “a boulder” underneath. As a rival, he loves a good shove. A win gets a short “Hmph. Good.”

Two friends you meet on the way

More join as the dams open. After Frostlog Dam, at the end of Glacier Gate, a tiny crayfish named Nib turns up. With no current, he says, he walked in circles on the bottom for a week. Nib never learned to swim, so he learned to float. Fast. He rides in a straw hat, wears orange water wings on his big claws and has the lightest, quickest boat on the river.

After Logjam Dam in Pinewood Rapids comes Sorrel, a newt map-maker with round glasses and a pencil behind one ear, who has a number for every bend. Sorrel races in a giant walnut shell, paddles with a ruler and keeps a rolled-up map aboard. “Excellent. My map had a big blank here. Now it has a river in it.”

Sorrel, a green newt with round black glasses, a pencil behind one ear and an orange belly, paddles a giant walnut shell with a yellow ruler on a green river, an orange pennant and a bucket of frogs aboard, and right behind comes Brogan, a gray hippo in a flat cap and a leather apron, sitting in a white bathtub with a black outside and paddling with a shovel, a pine-covered hillside, misty hills, a flying gull and more boats in the distance
Typed “kart racer on water”. A walnut shell, then a bathtub.

Further down the river

Three more join at the next three dams. Verbena, a heron actress in a pink feather boa, races in a violin case and paddles with the bow. She faints at splashes and wins anyway. Burl the beaver brings a hollow log and an oar and knows every spot to lay a plank. And Hollis, a stork who carried the river’s night mail for forty years, rides in a dresser drawer with a broom for a paddle. One last delivery is left: the sea.

Dame Dambury and the Dam Hands

Dame Dambury is a beaver, and a very proper one, with a wide sun hat and a parasol. On every Dam Run she stands on the bridge on top of her dam, right over the bell, while her Dam Hands, beavers in red work caps, stand on the crest. When she boasts about the three hundred pines they stacked at Logjam Dam, all they say is “Shhh!”

Dame Dambury, a brown beaver in a wide straw sun hat with a teal ribbon, holding a teal and white parasol over her shoulder, stands in the middle of a wooden log bridge on top of a dam of stacked logs, a big brass bell hanging under the bridge over the open gate, the icy blue river running through it and snowy hills with pine trees on both sides
Dame Dambury searched “how to stop a boat race”. Ring the bell anyway.

She plays by the rule, too. Finish fourth or lower, and the dam stays shut: “Top three, dears. That’s the rule. Off you go.” How her summer turns out, we’ll leave for you to find out.

Pick a boat

The Jetty is a wooden pier with a mooring post for each of the nine heroes. Instead of stat bars, each card has three little drawings: a wake for turning, pebbles for weight and a hull on a wave. Every boat cruises at the same speed.

The first two reaches, Glacier Gate and Pinewood Rapids, are free to race at kettlecrest.com, and Nib and Sorrel both join you there. The full game, all six reaches to the sea, is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on the Kettlecrest page.

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