Turbo Pudding

PitterplopDev diary

How Gilby hops, bounces and swims

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

Gilby, a little honey-colored axolotl with feathery golden gills, a small blue raindrop on his forehead and a green leaf scarf, leaps up out of a small clear pool in the sunny woods of Hedgerow Hush with a big smile, his finned tail curled under him and a few tiny bubbles trailing from his head, just above the gently wavy surface of the water, which has green weeds along its bottom; grassy earth banks rise on both sides, a round paper lantern hangs from a bent stick on the left bank, and tall green trunks, a leafy canopy, soft sunbeams and a pale sun fill the background

Gilby is an axolotl, and an axolotl is at home in two places: on dry ground and in water. So Pitterplop moves him by two sets of rules. On land he runs, jumps and bounces. In water he swims wherever he likes, and one push near the surface sends him flying out. At the top of this post, he’s doing just that, leaping out of a little woodland pool in Hedgerow Hush.

This Wednesday, here’s how those moves are tuned, with the real numbers from the game.

One tile, a tenth of the screen

Everything in Pitterplop is measured in tiles. A tile is 48 pixels square, and Gilby stands about one and a half tiles tall, roughly a tenth of the screen’s height. That’s big enough to read his face on a phone and small enough to see the next ledge coming.

On the ground, he never starts or stops dead. He reaches full speed in under a fifth of a second, slows down when you let go, and brakes almost twice as hard when you press the other way, so turning around feels snappy. At full tilt, he covers more than six tiles a second. In the air, he still answers the arrows, a little more gently.

Hold for a leap, tap for a hop

The game’s first tip says: “Hold jump to leap higher, tap for a small hop.” Behind it, a held jump lifts Gilby about 3.4 tiles. Let go sooner, and the game keeps only 42 percent of his upward speed, so a quick tap gives a hop of about 1.3 tiles. Anything in between is yours to choose.

The rise and the fall don’t feel the same, on purpose. Gravity pulls about one and a half times harder as he falls, so landings are quick and sure. And while you hold the button, Gilby floats for a beat at the very top of the jump, where gravity drops to about half. That tiny pause is when you line up a landing.

Squash and stretch

Animators have an old trick called squash and stretch: a body that squishes when it lands and stretches when it takes off looks soft and alive. Every jump stretches Gilby for a moment to 78 percent of his width and 125 percent of his height.

A landing does the opposite. The harder he lands, the bigger the squash, up to 35 percent wider and almost 30 percent shorter after a long drop. Then he springs back to his usual shape in a fraction of a second.

Gilby, a little honey-colored axolotl with feathery golden gills, a small blue raindrop on his forehead and a green leaf scarf, has just landed on the grass of Puddle Path after a long drop and is squashed wide and short for a moment, his round head stretched sideways over a squat body, his finned tail flat on the ground behind him and a happy smile on his face; a wooden plank on two legs floats in the blue sky at the right, a puffy white cloud sits at the top left, a pale sun shines at the top right, and green hills with round trees and small red-roofed houses roll behind a dark green hedge with two little purple flowers
Search: “why am I flat after jumping.” It wears off fast.

Small helpers you never notice

If Gilby runs off a ledge and you press jump a split second late, he still jumps: the game gives you seven extra frames, about a tenth of a second. If you press jump just before he lands, the game remembers it for eight frames and jumps the instant his feet touch down.

Corners get the same kindness. If the edge of his head clips a block by up to 10 pixels as he rises, he slides around it instead of bonking to a stop. And a low lip, up to 30 pixels high, a bit more than half a tile, he simply walks up without jumping at all.

Three kinds of trampolines

Pitterplop has three things to bounce on. The springy mushroom launches Gilby about six tiles up, nearly twice as high as his best jump. It also stretches him even more than a jump does.

In the sunny woods of Mossy Steps, Gilby, the little honey-colored axolotl with feathery golden gills, a blue raindrop on his forehead and a green leaf scarf, stands stretched tall and thin on top of a red mushroom with white spots, whose cap is squashed flat under him a moment before it launches him into the air; little pale stars twinkle in the air above him, blue dewdrops hang in the air at the left, and tall green trunks rise to a leafy canopy with soft sunbeams, pale clouds and a row of pine trees behind
Searched: “tallest axolotl.” For one frame, it’s this one.

Glowcaps, the shining mushrooms deeper in Mossy Hollow, are gentler. A plain landing bounces Gilby about two and a half tiles, and holding jump doubles that to about five. Big glowcaps push 20 percent harder.

Then there are the critters. Once a grumpy snail or frog has been stomped to sleep, its back turns into a pillow. Hold jump as you land on it for a big bounce of about five tiles. Don’t, and you get a softer bounce that dies down after a few hops, until Gilby can stand right on top.

Gilby, the little honey-colored axolotl with feathery golden gills, a blue raindrop on his forehead and a green leaf scarf, flies high into a blue sky in Sprouting Steps, smiling, with his tail curled under him, just after bouncing off a snail that sleeps on the grass below him; the snail has an orange spiral shell, a pale green head with closed eyes and two little feelers, and a small z floats above it; two blue dewdrops sit on the grass at the left, and on the right a grumpy Burrbit, a round green burr with leaf ears, a lilac tuft and a frown, stands under a small purple-gray cloud, in front of a green hedge, rolling hills with round trees and little houses, and a pale sun
People also ask: can you nap on a snail? Only if it naps first.

At home in water

The moment water reaches Gilby’s middle, the land rules switch off. He swims freely in every direction, a little slower than he runs, and the water softens every move, so he glides instead of darting. Left alone, he drifts slowly up toward the surface. Jump turns into a flick of the tail that pushes him upward.

Near the surface, that flick becomes a leap. We made the check generous: if his head is just under the water, it still counts, and he shoots out almost as high as a full jump. Diving in is the opposite: a big fall into water loses about two-thirds of its speed at once, with a splash.

Water also heals. Axolotls are famous for regrowing what they lose, so while Gilby swims, lost hearts come back one at a time, one every two and a half seconds.

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

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