Turbo Pudding

LoudnikMeet the cast

Meet the mid-bosses of the far stations

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

The Cable Serpent over Speaker Canyon, drawn large: its head is a lavender jack plug with a ribbed boot on top, two grip halves with screws, a collar and two white pins glowing red where shots hit, and a dark cable runs from it to a chain of round gray cable links with ringed faces and red centers curving off to the left; white sparks and orange bits fly around the plug, and pink enemy bullets are scattered across a dark brown sky with a soft dune ridge at the top

Every station in Loudnik has two bosses. The big one waits at the end. The other one turns up about halfway through, under a “JAMMER!” banner with its name underneath. This Monday, meet the mid-bosses of stations four to nine: Monotone’s middle management.

Cable Serpent, Speaker Canyon

The Cable Serpent, at the top, has a jack plug for a head: a ribbed grip, a collar and two metal pins. Behind it trails a cable, and six round links ride along it wherever the head has been.

The head swoops across the canyon in long curves, and the links follow its path like train cars. They take turns firing single shots at your ship. Every so often the plug itself lets out a ring of sparks. Each link can be shot off on its own, and it pays a few picks when it goes.

The weak spot is the pins. At half health the Serpent picks up speed, the links switch to firing pairs, and the plug adds a fan of three needles.

Stone Gong, Drum Cave

Drum Cave’s mid-boss is a stone gong that rolls. It travels at a slant around the top half of the screen, bouncing off its edges, and every bounce rings. Literally: each one sends out a ring of bullets, six to ten of them, depending on difficulty.

The engraved marks on its face turn as it rolls, and the raised boss in the middle is where you aim. At half health it rolls faster, the rings get bigger, and it starts firing threes at you between bounces.

Patrol Tug, Night Highway and The Armada

The Patrol Tug is a flying tow truck, seen from above. It has a bed with a tow boom and a hook at the back, a cab with a red roof light at the front, and a big loudspeaker horn on each side.

The Patrol Tug over Night Highway, drawn large and seen from above: a gray flying tow truck with a tow hook on a boom at the top, a wide flat bed, a big lavender loudspeaker horn on each side and a rounded cab below with a small red roof light and a dark windshield glowing pink where shots hit it, white sparks flying off; below it two curved arcs of pink enemy bullets spread out with a wide gap between them, small green shots float around, and on the right a gray street sign reads SILENCE IS ORDER over dark lanes with dashed lines
Searched “tow truck in space.” It came with loudspeakers.

Those horns are its guns. One at a time, they fire a wide arc of bullets at your ship, and every arc has a gap three bullets wide somewhere in it. Find the gap and sit in it. The glowing spot at the front of the cab is the weak spot.

At half health both horns fire, one right after the other, and the second gap sits a little to the side of the first, so you have to slide over. In between, the cab fires thin needles at you.

The Tug comes back at The Armada, the ninth station, as the flagship’s own tug. This time it carries kit for the long haul: a pennant, two fuel tanks and a winch drum.

Glitch Snake, Pixel Archive

The Glitch Snake is made of square pixels. Its head is one big square with two red eyes, pixel horns on top and pixel fins on the sides. Its body is a line of smaller squares, getting smaller toward the tail.

The Glitch Snake in the Pixel Archive: a big lavender pixel head with two red square eyes, a white brow, two stubby pixel horns on top and pixel fins on the sides, its jaw flashing white where shots hit it; a line of lavender pixel squares curves up and to the right behind it as its body, three purple square pixel bullets glow below, and in the upper right a dashed red outline of a square head with a short dashed tail marks the spot it will jump to, all on a dark green grid with a dim tower of cartridges on the left
People also ask: why does the snake game boss teleport?

It doesn’t really fly from place to place. It blinks. First a dashed red outline of the snake flickers at its next spot, a little more than half a second ahead. Then the head jumps there, and the body it left behind falls apart into slow pixels that drift down at you. Its tail drips pixels too, and the head spits single ones your way.

Its pixel jaw opens wide just before it blinks. The head is the weak spot. At half health it blinks more often, lands with a ring of pixels around it and adds fans of needles.

Press Robot, Factory of Silence

The Press Robot is a flying hydraulic press: a crossbeam with two thrusters, two columns, a cylinder in the middle and a heavy stamp plate on a piston. It slides along the top of the screen to line up with your ship.

The Press Robot in the Factory of Silence, drawn large: a gray crossbeam with two small thrusters and a dim red light on top, two lavender columns with clamp bands and a curved hydraulic hose on the left one, a gray cylinder in the middle and a glowing pink piston hinge under it; a long rod runs down from the hinge to a heavy gray stamp plate with dark stripes, green arc-shaped shots curve over the cylinder and the plate, a gray wall with yellow and black caution stripes stands on the left and the background is a dark wall of foam wedges
Search: “hydraulic press vs everything.” Now it’s vs you.

Then it stamps. A dashed outline marks the spot, and just under a second later the plate slams down on it on a long rod. On impact, two short rows of bullets shoot out sideways along the floor. Between stamps it fires single shots at you.

The weak spot is the piston hinge. At half health it stamps twice a cycle, the second time wherever you ran to, and the single shots become threes.

Falling apart, a piece at a time

As a mid-boss takes damage, bits of it break off with a pop and a spray of sparks and tumble away. The Serpent loses the boot where its cable goes in and the halves of its grip, chips fly off the Gong’s rim, and the Tug drops its hook, its side mirrors and its tailgate. The Glitch Snake sheds its horns and fins. The Press Robot loses its thrusters, its clamp bands and its hose. Where a piece was, a scar stays and smolders.

When a mid-boss finally goes down, every enemy bullet on the screen pops, and about half of them turn into picks. It also drops a capsule, plus either a record or a sleeve.

Tune in

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.