Pitterplop: a field guide to grumpy critters

One gray morning a cloud of grumbles rolled over the Whispering Meadow, and everyone it touched turned cross and crabby. Gilby doesn’t fight any of them. He lands on a grumpy critter, and it falls asleep, or he washes the grumble off with puddle water, and it wakes up kind. As a note in the game’s code puts it, nobody is hurt.

The six levels of the meadow hold 42 grumpy critters of six kinds. It’s Friday, so here is a field guide to all of them, with a few things we only noticed while reading the code.

How to tell a grumpy one

A grumpy critter wears its mood on its head: a little purple storm cloud, and every so often a tiny yellow lightning bolt flickers inside it. Its brows slant down, too. Once it’s asleep, its eyes turn into two small arcs and a “z” floats up. A washed critter has no cloud at all. Instead, now and then, a little pink heart floats up.

The snail

Ten snails, which makes them the most common critter in the meadow, tied with the beetle. An orange spiral shell, a pale green body and eyes on stalks. Snails are careful walkers: they turn around at every ledge rather than step off. Despite the reputation, they are not the slowest critters in the meadow. That title goes to the Burrbit.

A sleeping snail is a pillow. As one of the signs says, “A sleepy snail is as soft as a pillow. Hold jump and bounce on it!”

The beetle

Also ten. A round blue shell with white spots and a dark blue head. Beetles are the bold ones: they happily hop down small steps, but never into water, thorns or a pit. A sleeping beetle isn’t a pillow. It’s a step, and a very patient one.

Gilby, a small orange axolotl with frilly yellow gills, a blue drop on his head and a green scarf, stands smiling on the back of a round blue beetle with white spots that is fast asleep with its eyes closed on the grass of Breezy Hilltops, with a tall earth cliff on the left, a wooden sign with a question mark on the right, and green hills with small red-roofed cottages under big white clouds behind — Typed “platformer where enemies become platforms”. Hi, beetle.

The frog

Seven frogs, green, with a pale tummy and pink cheeks. A frog sits still for a little over a second, then hops. If Gilby is nearby, it turns to face him first, every single time. Like the snail, a sleeping frog makes a fine pillow.

The moth

Six moths, with cream wings, orange spots, a fluffy collar and curly antennae. A moth flutters back and forth over its own short stretch of sky, bobbing up and down as it goes. Wash one, and it keeps fluttering, only slower. Put one to sleep, and it comes down to the ground and joins the steps.

Over the sunflower field of Sunflower Swing, a grumpy moth with round cream wings with orange spots, a brown body, a fluffy cream collar, curly antennae and frowning brows flutters in the sky under a small purple storm cloud with a tiny yellow lightning bolt, while Gilby the orange axolotl stands below on a big tilting sunflower with a smiling face, four blue dewdrops hang in the air, and green hills, small cottages and the sun fill the background — Search: “grumpy moth game”. Found one. It found us first.

The fish

Only three, and all of them live in the pond in Puddle Path, paddling back and forth under the water. Gilby is an axolotl, so the pond is home turf for him too. One rule is different down there: a sleeping fish never turns into a step. It just sleeps.

The Burrbit

The only critter with a proper name. A Burrbit is a round burr with leaf ears, a lilac tuft and little hooks all over, and it’s the slowest critter in the meadow. You can’t land on one. The code is blunt about it: “spines are spines, however heavy you are.” Only water helps. “A splash washes the grumble off a prickly Burrbit,” a sign explains. The hooks fold flat, the ears droop and the tuft flops over, soft as a pom-pom.

On a row of mossy stone blocks in the woods of Hedgerow Hush, a grumpy Burrbit, a round green burr with leaf ears, a lilac tuft, little brown hooks all around, a cream face with frowning brows and a pink nose, stands under a small purple storm cloud with a yellow lightning bolt, while three drops of water fly toward it from Gilby the orange axolotl, who stands smiling at the other end of the blocks, with tall tree trunks, sunbeams and a leafy canopy behind — People also ask: “how do you beat a spiky enemy?” With a splash.

No water left? Bump the block it’s standing on from below. Any critter on a bumped block gets bounced off its feet and falls asleep.

House rules

Every critter follows a few rules, whether you notice them or not.

Critters keep secrets. To a critter, the earth around a hidden hollow is a solid wall, so none of them ever wanders into one and gives it away.

Critters wait for you. One that is well off screen stays exactly where it is, so nobody wanders off before you arrive.

Gilby the orange axolotl smiles inside a small dark hollow under the ground of Hedgerow Hush, next to a big blue dewdrop and two tiny glowing mushrooms, while up on the grass to the right, a grumpy snail with an orange spiral shell, a pale green body, eyes on stalks and a small purple storm cloud over its head frowns, with tree trunks and the leafy canopy above — Search history: “secret room platformer”. The snail isn’t telling.

Every critter counts once. In Hedgerow Hush, the way out opens only when every critter is calmed. Asleep or washed, it counts the same, and a washed critter you later tuck in for a nap doesn’t count twice.

No dice. When a frog hops or how a moth flutters depends on where it starts, not on chance, so a level plays the same way every time.

And one for Gilby

Gilby has three hearts. Lose one, and the cure is very axolotl: get in the water. In the water, lost hearts grow back one at a time, about every two and a half seconds. The code comment for it is two words long: “axolotls regrow.” And in Cozy mode, a bump costs nothing at all, and a fall ends with a bubble carrying Gilby back to the last firm ground.

Come and meet them

The first two levels, Dewdrop Meadow and Puddle Path, are free to play in your browser at pitterplop.com. The full game is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on the Pitterplop page.

A field guide to grumpy critters