Turbo Pudding

LoudnikFrom the sketchbook

Every Jammer started as a piece of sound gear

· The Turbo Pudding team · 4 min read

Over the deep indigo sky of Pirate Cove, a Cargo deck, a wide gray tape deck with two big pale reels with three dark spokes each, a dark window between them, gold triangles on all four corners, a row of dark buttons with a bright red rec light in the middle and a thin whip antenna sticking up from its top, hangs in the middle of the frame; two small gray Squeakers, darts pointing down with short white exhaust dashes and antennas of their own, fly at the upper left and upper right, two little Fizz flakes of static with three spokes each spin in the lower corners, and dim purple rocks and a faint lattice truss of the station float in the background

Monotone wants a quiet galaxy, yet his army is made of sound gear. Every Jammer in Loudnik is drawn in code as a piece of audio kit, and our notes give each one a name. It’s Sunday, so here are the ones you meet in the first three stations.

A squeak, some static and a wave

The Squeaker is a dart pointing down, with a white exhaust dash flickering behind it. Fizz is a flake of static: three spokes around a dot, spinning and shivering as it goes. The Sine is a flat lens with a sine wave running across it, and it flies the same wave it wears.

The Pendulum is a drop on a short rod. It swings twice, then dives at you.

Keeping time in the Disco Rings

The Metronome is a little pyramid with a ticking arrow in front, and it fires the way a metronome counts, in bursts of three. The Equalizer is a box with five meter bars hanging under it, and the bars jump on a beat of their own. Tall bars stop your shots, and short ones leave a gap. The Equalizer fires from the tip of its tallest bar, so you shoot through the gap as it marches along.

In the dark purple sky of the Disco Rings, an Equalizer, a rounded gray box with two pale stripes and three small sequins on its face, one of them lit teal, hangs on the left over five meter bars: three tall striped bars and two short dark ones that leave gaps between them, with a dim red light at the tip of the tallest; on the right, a Metronome, a gray trapezoid like a little pyramid with a pale face, a dark arrow tilted to the right, a bright red rec light near its base and sequins in lilac and teal; behind them are a dim dance floor of colored squares, faint ring patterns and the dark curve of a ringed planet at the bottom
Search: “equalizer settings for bass.” Aim for the gap.

The Stereo is two speaker cones on one bridge, with a dashed seam down the middle. Shoot it, and it comes apart at the seam into two halves that turn on your ship.

Discs, masts and an eraser

The Jammer disc has six slots and red lights running round its rim, and it fires rings. The Mast is a lattice tower with a dish on top that turns to follow your ship. The Eraser is a slanted block with a swinging wiper arm.

A fork and a needle in Bell Garden

A Tuning fork is a U lying on its side, prongs toward its partner. Forks come in pairs, and between a live pair runs a humming thread. Never cross it. While it hums, the prongs shiver.

In the dark teal sky of Bell Garden, two Tuning forks face each other across the frame, each a gray U lying on its side with a pale knob at the end of its stem, a pale cyan streamer curling up above it and a small red light; between their open prongs stretches the humming thread, a wavy crimson line with a white core and a dark rim, and dim floating islands with slanted sides and little bells hanging on long threads fill the background
Typed “what does a tuning fork do.” This pair guards a line.

The Stylus is a record player’s pickup head, and the needle is its sharp end. It turns to follow your ship and shows a dashed groove line where it will go. For the last third of the wait, its aim locks. Then it plunges straight down the groove, so step out of it.

In the dark teal sky of Bell Garden, a Stylus, a gray pickup head shaped like a shield with a pale plate, a short arm sticking up behind it and a white needle at its point, hangs tilted toward the lower left with its red rec light swollen and glowing; a pale cyan streamer rises behind it, a dashed crimson groove line runs from the needle down to the bottom of the frame, and dim floating islands and little bells on long threads fill the background
Search history: “turntable stylus replacement” “how to dodge one.”

Gold trim means cargo

Two Jammers carry loot, and both wear gold. The Music box has a crank turning on its side and its lid ajar. Now and then, one crosses the top of the screen with a bonus shown above the lid: a heart, a shield, a record or a note. It never hurts your ship. Shoot it, and the bonus comes out.

The bigger of the two is a wide tape deck with two turning reels and gold corners. Our notes call it the Cargo deck, and the game’s goals call it a tape truck. It carries a cassette and a load of guitar picks.

Big things adrift

Big things drift by, too, and Monotone has taken them over. A broken broadcast satellite has one solar wing whole and one snapped and hanging. A giant speaker cabinet has a big woofer under a small one and turns over slowly. In Bell Garden, rocks drift by with a transmitter buried inside, so only its mast, dish and red light stick out.

These take a lot of shooting, so they show the damage: one crack at three quarters of their health, a second at half and a third at a quarter, when the cracks glow hot orange inside. Each one works out its cracks from its own number, so no two cabinets crack the same way. Below 30 percent, the hull turns reddish.

Over the dark purple sky of the Disco Rings, a giant speaker cabinet floats tilted to one side, its hull gone a dusty reddish mauve, with pale metal corners, a small woofer above a big one, a dark round tweeter in the top left corner and a bright red rec light in the top right; three dark cracks with glowing orange insides run across both woofers, and a dim dance floor of colored squares, faint ring patterns and the dark top of a planet fill the background
People also ask: “why is my speaker crackling?” Keep shooting.

Break a cabinet, and its two woofers come out live and spinning. A rock breaks into live rubble.

Dressed for the station

The gray changes by station: a cool blue-gray at Pirate Cove, a little more violet in the Disco Rings and a touch of teal in Bell Garden. Each station adds one extra, too. The antenna’s tip blinks. The three sequins light up one at a time in the Disco Rings’ own teal, gold and orange. The streamer is pale cyan, one of Bell Garden’s colors.

One thing stays the same everywhere. When you hit a Jammer, it flashes white: the game draws the same shape again on top, brighter. A filter would be the usual way, but Safari lacks it, and a second drawing works everywhere.

Meet them in the free stations

The first three stations are free to play in your browser at loudnik.com, with every machine above in them. 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.