Turbo Pudding
It’s Friday, so here’s a small feature that starts big arguments. Same River is Kettlecrest’s mode for a couch, a long car ride or the kitchen table. Two to four friends share one device and take turns racing the same leg, and the game makes sure nobody can blame the river.
The picture at the top is a Same River start on Needlewood Run, in Pinewood Rapids. Juno waits at the rope, and the rivals beside her will be the same for every friend who follows.
Names on the card
Pick Same River on the title screen, and the first card asks for names. It sums up the idea: “Two to four friends, one device. Everyone gets the very same river: the same surges, baskets and rivals.” There are two empty name lines to start with, and an “Add a friend” button for up to four.
A name can be up to 12 characters long, with letters, digits, spaces, periods, apostrophes and hyphens. That is exactly enough for “Uncle Barney.” Aunt Rosemary is one letter too long and has to race as “Aunt Rosemar.” Leave a line empty, and the game fills in “Paddler 1,” “Paddler 2” and so on. It also remembers the crew for next time.
Pass to Tobi
On the River Map, the card for each leg reads like a chore chart on the fridge: “Mira · Tobi · Ana take turns.” Choose a leg and a water level, from Low Water to Flood, and the passing begins.
Before every turn, a card says whose turn it is, “Pass to Tobi,” with the place and time of everyone who has already raced. The button on it is the honor system in one line: “I’m Tobi: to the Jetty.” At the Jetty, each friend picks a hero from the moorings left open. The five heroes racing as rivals are shut, and their moorings say why: “Racing as a rival on this river today: the same five for every friend.”
On a brand-new save, those five rivals are exactly the heroes you haven’t opened yet: Nib, Sorrel, Verbena, Burl and Hollis. So the crew gets to race them before anyone can paddle them, and the friends choose from Ottilie, Fennel, Juno and Brogan.
The very same river
When the crew is set, the game picks one starting number that decides how the river behaves. Every friend gets the same surges at the same moments, the same picnic baskets in the same places and the same rivals in the same starting spots.
In The Long River and Free Float, the rivals lean their pace a little toward how you’re doing. In Same River they don’t. Each rival keeps its own steady pace, so nobody gets a gentler race because the friend before them had a rough one. A hard knock still costs a heart.
House rules for a family race
Same River also has a family rule. It’s the same for every friend and only touches the friend’s own boat, never the river or the rivals.
After a hit from a Splash Pump, a Frog Bucket, a Whisk or a Cross Goose, a friend is left alone for ten seconds, with nothing aimed at them and nothing landing on them. Rivals get four. A rival that is ahead of a friend never throws back at them, though rivals behind throw as usual. And the gulls are kinder. With no hearts left, half of the drops aimed at a friend are hearts, instead of a bit over a third. With three hearts, it’s 16 percent instead of 10.
We tested it with a computer driver that plays like a young child. That driver now takes 2.9 weapon hits a race instead of 5.3, and capsizing with no hearts left fell from about one race in two to about one in fourteen. On Low Water, it now wins 55 to 75 percent of its races, up from 30 to 60.
One postcard for everyone
When the last friend crosses the line, the crew gets one shared Postcard: “Greetings from Needlewood Run,” and under it, “Same River · High Water · one river for everyone.” Each friend gets a stamp with their name, their hero, their place and their time.
The stamps go in order of place. Everyone races the same five rivals on their own, so two friends can both finish first. Then the clock decides. The top stamp gets a happy face. Anyone who finished worse than third gets the soaked face. Then come two buttons: Map, and Again, which puts the whole crew back on the very same river.
The cards play the calm tune of the menus, “River at Dawn,” a tin whistle over a soft plucked string. It keeps the room peaceful until the Postcard comes up.
The first two reaches, Glacier Gate and Pinewood Rapids, Needlewood Run included, are free to race at kettlecrest.com, on a computer, tablet or phone. The full game, all six reaches to the sea, is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Kettlecrest page.
