Turbo Pudding

LassoodleFrom the sketchbook

Drawing critters you can read from above

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

A fluffy white cloud puff floats toward the camera over a pink candy floor, drawn large in the middle: it is a bunch of soft white puffs with a lilac shade underneath, two big gray eyes, round pink cheeks and a small dark mouth open in an O, with a pink lollipop ball peeking over its top; behind it are a tan wafer wall, a big pastel rainbow, pink and white striped candy poles, a floating island with a lollipop and a yellow candy ball, and colorful sprinkles scattered on the floor under a pale blue sky

Lassoodle has 18 critters across its six worlds, not counting the bosses. You meet them while steering a snake, with the camera looking down at the arena from above and a little to the side. So each critter has to tell you at a glance what it is and what it’s about to do. This Sunday, open the sketchbook.

Toys made of simple shapes

Every critter is built in code from a handful of simple shapes. Spheres make bodies and heads, cones make fangs, horns and ears, and thin cylinders make legs. Colors are painted on shape by shape. The spider’s yellow spots come from a single rule that paints a few patches on top of its round purple body.

There are only two finishes: a soft, toy-like matte and a shiny one. Nothing is meant to look real. The spider of the Glowshroom Jungle has eight bent legs, each with a knee raised above its body, two pale fangs and big shiny eyes. Before it spits a web, it rears up with a red outline, and a pale ring on the ground shows where the web will land. The web slows the snake, and the fangs hurt on contact.

A round spider, drawn large in the middle on a checkered floor of gray and white tiles crossed by a trail of green tiles: its body is a glossy deep purple ball with jagged yellow patches on top, its head is a smaller ball with two big white eyes, two pink dots and two small pale fangs, and eight thin dark legs bend out to the sides; behind it, two white spider webs lie on the floor, a see-through pale blue chameleon stands half hidden near the left web, another spider walks at the top edge and a blue berry cluster sits at the top right, with the dark green jungle floor beyond
Searched “cute spider enemy design.” Still has fangs, though.

One look per world

Each world has three critters of its own, and they wear its colors. In the Sunny Orchard, there are buzzbees, beetles and moles. The moles are the Mole King’s miners, so they wear yellow helmets with a lamp. In the Frosty Fjord, penguins slide on their bellies in red winter scarves. Snowballs spin as they roll, while their grumpy faces keep looking ahead, and frost sprites are ice fairies with a snowflake crown.

The Sunstone Dunes get a shiny teal scarab with a gold rim and a little horn, a tumbleweed with a shy face and a sandy-orange scorpion with big claws. The scorpion’s tail is a separate piece, so it can curl up over its back and sting. When the snake’s head enters the cone in front of it, the scorpion raises its stinger with a red outline. A snake that keeps circling slips out of reach.

A sandy-orange scorpion faces the camera on pale rippled sand, drawn large in the middle: its round body and head are glossy orange, with two big white eyes looking to the side and two pink cheeks, its tail curls up over its back as a stack of round orange segments, two big round claws with small pointed tips reach toward the bottom of the frame, and short orange legs stick out on both sides; small brown rocks, dry yellow grass tufts and a purple grape cluster dot the sand around it
People also ask: “are cartoon scorpions friendly?” Mostly claws.

Why the frog is blue

The frog of the Glowshroom Jungle is bright blue, with dark spots and a yellow belly. A note in its code gives the reason: it “reads on grass and on dark jungle floor.” Its eyes sit on top as two big bumps, which the same code calls “readable from the 3/4 camera.”

The frog never hurts the snake. It wants your fruit. Before it strikes, its pale yellow throat sac swells for at least 0.6 seconds, a red outline lights up and a pink ring marks what the tongue will grab. Then a pink tongue snaps out and reels the fruit in, there and back in 0.3 seconds.

A bright blue frog, drawn large in the middle on the dark teal jungle floor dotted with glowing green specks: it has a round glossy body with a yellow belly, two big eyes on top of its head with black pupils, pink cheeks and stubby blue feet, and it holds a shiny red apple with a short brown stem against its mouth; small dark rocks, a few grass blades and floating yellow-green lights sit around it
Typed “snake game frog steals fruit.” Yes, and it won’t share.

Wings, not fruit

The fire bat is a round ember-orange ball with a yellow flame tuft, two pointed red ears, little fangs and big cream eyes. From above, a round orange-red ball could pass for fruit, so the wings got a note of their own in the code. Each one is a thin scalloped membrane with three finger tips, dark plum with a warm inner part, so the bat reads as “wings spread” from the 3/4 camera “and never as a round red fruit.”

The bat hovers high over its roost. When it picks a line, its shadow glows red on the ground through the snake’s head for at least 0.6 seconds. Then it swoops low along that line and climbs back. You’ll find the fire bat, the rock golem, the cloud puff and the gumball in Endless, which mixes the critters of every world you’ve opened.

A fire bat flies toward the camera over a brown stone floor laced with glowing red cracks, drawn large in the middle: its body is a round glossy orange ball fading to yellow underneath, with two big cream eyes with black pupils, two tiny white fangs, two pointed red ears and a yellow flame tuft on top, and its dark plum wings with red inner parts spread wide to both sides; behind it are a golden pear on the floor, strips of yellow chevron arrows, a wall of dark basalt columns and dark ground with glowing lava streaks beyond
Search history: “bat or apple?” “bat with big wings” “bat.”

Warnings you can read

Every critter that can hurt the snake warns first. No attack on the head winds up in less than 0.6 seconds. Ranged attacks start only when the head is within 6.5 meters, close enough to be on screen. If something off screen within 16 meters is winding up, an arrow at the edge of the screen points at it: red and pulsing for a wind-up, orange for a critter rushing in.

The red got special care too. The game runs its colors through a filter that evens out light and shade, and it turns a see-through red over grass into brown. A warning has to read as red, so outlines and ground marks skip the filter.

Red is saved for trouble. The cloud puff from the Candy Cloud Kingdom never hurts. Its pink cheeks swell, a pale cone on the ground shows where the gust will blow, and then its mouth opens into an “O” and pushes the snake aside. Since a gust doesn’t hurt, the cone is pale, not red. The rock golem’s dotted ring shows white when your snake is long enough to loop it, 20 segments or more, and red when it isn’t.

Meet them yourself

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.

More about Lassoodle

LassoodleFrom the sketchbook

Lassoodle sketchbook: how Milo got his face

The first snake had big eyes and no expression. Here is how Milo got a new head, five moods and a new name, and why Frosty Mint’s scarf became a collar.