Turbo Pudding
Some Lassoodle levels are a field of fruit and a hungry snake, and that’s all they need to be. Others have opinions. It’s Saturday, so here are six snapshots from six levels where the ground throws you, pulls you, sinks under you, blows steam at you or swings a candy arm at you, plus one where somebody races you.
The picture at the top is Rainbow Rally in the Candy Cloud Kingdom. Milo has just gone through a ring, and Sprocket, Count Crowbeak’s clockwork racing snake, is right beside him. More on that race at the end.
Hop Garden: the short way over
Hop Garden is the third level of the Sunny Orchard, the free first world. Its golden pears grow behind long hedges, and each pear counts as three fruit toward the 24 the level asks for. Eat one and its bush grows a new pear 12 seconds later.
You can go around the hedges, or you can take the short way. Two jump pads sit in front of them, and touching one throws Milo into the air in the direction the pad points, high enough to clear a hedge. A pad needs a little over half a second to reset before it throws again. Two beetles patrol the back corners, and as the level’s tip warns, beetles nibble tails.
Mirage Oasis: a melon in the swirl
Mirage Oasis opens the Sunstone Dunes, and it’s where you meet sand. Plain sand slows you down. Quicksand slows you down even more and pulls you toward its middle, which is exactly where the melons grow back, ten seconds after you eat one.
So every melon here is a small bet: in, bite, out. A magnet waits beside each pit. Pick it up, and for eight seconds any fruit within six meters drifts toward Milo’s head, so the melon floats up out of the swirl to meet him. There is also a spring in the middle of the oasis that heals one heart, once, if you arrive hurt.
Cinder Crossing: a floor that comes back
Cinder Crossing is the first level of Ember Forge, and its lava burns. Two melon bushes grow in a walled garden by the north wall, and the only way in is a floor of three basalt slabs laid over the lava.
The slabs hold while you’re on them. Once the end of your tail leaves a slab, it cracks, and less than a second later it sinks. The lava glows through the gap for three seconds, then the slab floats back up. Cross in one go, and the floor will be there again when you want to come back out.
Steam Garden: three doors, three beats
Two levels later, Ember Forge puts its golden pears in another walled garden, and this time each of the three doorways is a vent. A fire jet blows across the west door for 1.2 seconds out of every 3.5. Geysers sit in the middle and east doors and steam for 1.4 seconds out of every four, each on its own beat.
Every vent warns you first: the ground glows for one second before the steam or the fire comes up. The level’s tip ends with three words, “Wait, then go!” The pears count three apiece toward a feast of 42.
Peppermint Spin: arms that never stop
The Candy Cloud Kingdom opens with a meadow and two spinners, candy-cane bars that turn all the time. The big one goes around slowly, once every 12 seconds. The little one turns the other way, a touch slower still. A brush with either one hurts and knocks you back.
Fruit grows all around them but never under them: nothing appears within 2.6 meters of a sweep. The golden pear bush sits right between the two spinners, and close to it lies a rainbow candy that turns Milo into a rainbow snake for ten seconds and doubles your points.
Rainbow Rally: three laps with Sprocket
Back to the picture at the top. In Rainbow Rally, Count Crowbeak sends Sprocket to race Milo three laps around a candy island, through eight rings in order, with 150 seconds on the clock. Milo’s reply to the challenge: “I’m fast. And hungry. Mostly hungry.”
The rings show you where to go. The next one glows yellow, the ones you have passed turn green, and the rest wait in pale lilac. The island, its lollipops and the gumdrops between the rings only bump you, and fruit grows all along the track, so you can snack while you race. A long snake is just as fast as a short one. And if Sprocket gets too close, the game’s own tip applies: a loop around the rival bursts it into fruit, and it starts again from its last ring.
World 1, the Sunny Orchard, is free to play in your browser at lassoodle.com. The full game, all six worlds, is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on the Lassoodle page.
