Turbo Pudding

LoudnikScreenshot Saturday

How a Loudnik station goes back on air

· The Turbo Pudding team · 3 min read

Pirate Cove, in deep violet: the Jammer Dish, a wide gray satellite dish on a long beam with an antenna mast and a speaker drum on each end and a glowing pink core under the bowl, hangs at the top of the screen; across the middle runs a dark band edged with pink and white hazard tape, with INTERFERENCE! in big white letters and Jammer Dish in gray below; Volta’s ship, a white and violet arrowhead, flies below it among arcs of green shots and falling gold guitar picks

In Loudnik, every station you fly through has been switched off by Monotone’s Jammers. Down the boss, and the station goes back on air. It all takes a few seconds, so this Saturday we slowed it down. Here are six frames from the three free stations, Pirate Cove, the Disco Rings and Bell Garden, from the first second of a stage to the very last ring.

The lamp comes on

Every stage opens with an orange ON AIR plate and the station’s name under it. The lamp starts dark and lights up on the second bar of the count-in, so the stage begins on the beat.

Bell Garden at the very start of the stage, in muted slate blue: an orange plate with ON AIR in dark letters glows in the middle of the screen with Bell Garden written below it in gray, Volta’s ship, a white and violet arrowhead, sits near the bottom firing pairs of pale teal shots straight up, and thin outlines of glass bells hang on threads between dark floating islands; the score reads 0
Searched “space shooter with a radio station.” The lamp agreed.

The station also starts washed out. Monotone has laid a gray veil over it, and every tenth of the stage’s enemies you shoot down brings some colour back.

Interference

When the boss arrives, a band of pink and white hazard tape runs across the screen with INTERFERENCE! on it and the boss’s name underneath. For the first second and a half, the word shakes with static before it settles. A mid-boss gets its own, shorter shout: JAMMER! The picture at the top is the Jammer Dish over Pirate Cove, just as the band appears.

Coming apart

When a boss runs out of health, its bullets don’t stay to bother you. Every one of them pops at once, and every second one turns into a guitar pick that flies straight to your ship. Then the boss breaks up in a chain of blasts that walks across its body, quicker and bigger as it goes. The pieces still on it come off one by one.

The Jammer Dish over Pirate Cove in the middle of its break-up: the gray dish hangs tilted, its antenna masts gone, scorched black holes on both speaker drums and along the beam, a white star of a blast at its left end and a faint ring at its right, while arcs of green shots keep rising toward it from Volta’s ship at the bottom and no enemy bullets are left on screen
Search: “satellite dish boss.” Signal lost, in a good way.

For a main boss, the whole break-up lasts two seconds. A mid-boss goes faster, in under one.

The Disco Rings, in dark purple with a faint ringed planet behind: the Mirror Warden, a big silver mirror ball, is breaking up near the top of the screen, black scraps flying off it and a white blast flaring on its upper right, while columns of pale teal shots rise from Volta’s ship at the bottom, gold picks drift down and the words +1 RECORD float just above the ship
Typed “disco ball boss fight.” It took the last dance.

Two rings

The last blast is the biggest. A white shockwave races out across the screen, and a gold one follows it a moment later. Confetti in the station’s colours bursts out, and white notes float up. Then the screen swells to white and fades back.

Bell Garden in slate blue just after the boss’s last blast: a bright white fireball full of sparks and gray shards sits in the upper half of the screen inside two white rings, a smaller one close around it and a much bigger one spreading toward the edges, while Volta’s ship flies below with a column of teal shots going up
People also ask: how big is the boom at the end of a stage?
The same moment in Bell Garden a few frames later: a gold ring has opened inside the white one, which has grown wider than the screen, white confetti and gray shards scatter from the middle, and a handful of gold guitar picks tumble down toward Volta’s ship near the bottom
Search history: “shooter where the boss pays you in guitar picks.”

If flashes bother you, switch on No flashes in the settings. The white-out turns into a light tint, and every other flash gets softer too. Screen shake can be turned off there as well.

On air

After that, every pick left on screen flies to your ship, and the station gets all its colour back. A moment later, Volta’s ship leaves the stage, up and off the top of the screen, and the results come up under one big line: STATION ON AIR!

The first three stations are free to play in your browser at loudnik.com. The full game, all ten stations, is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on the Loudnik page.

More about Loudnik

LoudnikMeet the cast

Loudnik: meet Volta, Bobina and the Jammers

Who’s who in Loudnik’s first three stations: a pirate DJ, a cassette robot, a machine that loves one note and the gray army that switches the galaxy off.