Turbo Pudding

PitterplopFrom the sketchbook

How we paint the Whispering Meadow

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

Gilby, the little orange axolotl with feathery gold gills, a small blue raindrop mark on his forehead and a green leaf scarf, smiles on the grass of Dewdrop Meadow beside the level’s exit, a round door in a gray stone arch with a garland of pink, white and yellow flowers and moss along its foot, glowing pale yellow because it’s open; behind them are green hills with round trees, a small white house with a slate-blue roof, pale hazy mountains, a big cream cloud at the top left and a pale sun in a blue sky, with brown earth and pebbles below the turf

Pitterplop doesn’t load a single image file. Gilby, the clouds, the grass and every lantern are drawn by the game itself, in your browser. It’s Sunday, so we’re opening the sketchbook to show how the Whispering Meadow gets painted.

The picture at the top is the end of Dewdrop Meadow, the very first level. The round door in its stone arch is open and glowing, and Gilby is one hop away.

An afternoon in the countryside

Before we drew anything, we wrote the look down in one line: the warm colors of an afternoon in the countryside. Saturated skies, big soft clouds, sunlit greens. In the meadow, the sky runs from clear blue at the top to pale cream near the horizon.

Everything is made with a handful of brushes. One draws a blob whose edge wobbles a little, like a shape cut out of paper by hand. Another lays a watercolor wash: several see-through copies of one shape, each shifted a little, so the color gathers darker at the rim, the way real paint dries. A third makes paper grain: speckles and fibers laid over the whole picture.

Clouds with folds

A cloud is a row of round puffs, tallest in the middle. Each puff is lit from the upper left, and the higher puffs are tucked behind the lower ones, which is what gives a cloud its folds. Then a cool shadow gathers along the flat underside, a warm glow settles on the sunny top, and the bottom edge melts into the sky.

To keep things fast, each cloud is painted once, when a level starts, and then simply copied across the sky as it drifts.

Four strips of scenery

Behind the meadow stand four painted strips. Farthest back are mountains with snow on their peaks. Then come hills with fields and a village of seven houses with cream walls and red, rust, orange or slate-blue roofs. Then a forest, and closest of all, bushes. The trees are round, a few blobs for the crown, darker underneath and lit from the upper left.

Each strip is 2,048 pixels long and repeats as you run. So its ridge lines are built from waves that fit the strip a whole number of times, and anything near an edge is painted at both ends. The strips also slide at different speeds: the mountains at 8 percent of the camera’s speed, the bushes at 60. That difference is what makes the meadow feel deep. Distant strips fade into the color of the horizon, the way far hills look hazy on a bright day.

The ground under Gilby’s feet

The ground is painted in square pieces, eight tiles by eight, the first time the camera comes near them. Each tile gets its own random seed and also looks at its neighbors, so the pieces fit together. The earth has thin strokes for its layers and round pebbles. Along the top runs a tuft of turf: a soft green band with drips hanging underneath, blades of grass on top and a flower here and there, white, yellow, pink or lilac.

Secret earth is our favorite trick. It sits on a separate layer that fades away when Gilby steps inside, showing a snug little hollow with roots hanging from the ceiling and tiny glowing mushrooms on the floor.

Inside a secret hollow under Dewdrop Meadow: the earth wall has faded away to show a dark brown tunnel with thin roots hanging from its ceiling, where Gilby, the little orange axolotl with feathery gold gills, a small blue raindrop mark on his forehead and a green leaf scarf, stands among four blue dewdrops; a tiny pink mushroom and a tiny pale blue one glow softly on the floor, a glowing crystal acorn with a brown cap floats at the left, and outside the tunnel, to the left, are grassy ledges, a big cream cloud and pale mountains under a blue sky
Search: “platformer with secret tunnels.” Mushrooms included.

Little lights

Checkpoints are little paper lanterns on reeds. Until you pass one, it hangs dark and papery. Then a warm flame wakes inside, glowing through the paper, and a few moths drift in to circle the light.

Breezy Hilltops on a sunny day: Gilby, the little orange axolotl with gold gills, a blue raindrop mark and a green leaf scarf, stands on a grassy ledge and looks right at a paper lantern hanging from a bent reed; the lantern is lit, a small orange flame shows through its striped cream paper, a warm glow spreads around it and two pale moths flutter on either side; below is brown earth with pebbles, at the left the ledge drops to a green hedge, and behind are round trees, pale mountains, a big white cloud at the top left and a pale sun
Typed “cozy platformer checkpoints.” The moths got there first.

The end of each level is a round door in a mossy stone arch with a garland of flowers across the top, and once it’s open, it glows. The keepsakes hidden in the levels come in three kinds: a pearl shell, a star seed and a crystal acorn.

The finishing pass

Last of all, the whole frame gets one more layer: warm light from the sun, a soft darkening toward the corners and the paper grain, laid on at a little over half strength. On top of that drift the motes. The meadow has floating pollen, the woods have falling leaves, and the darker places have fireflies.

Other worlds, other light

The same brushes paint Mossy Hollow, the second world, in a different light. Glowcap Hollow is the woods at dusk under a thick roof of leaves, with teal shadows, a violet sky in the gaps, a moon, glowing mushrooms in the undergrowth and fireflies all around.

Glowcap Hollow at night: Gilby, the little orange axolotl with gold gills, a blue raindrop mark and a green leaf scarf, stands on teal grass among tall dark tree trunks under a thick roof of leaves, next to a lit paper lantern on a reed that throws a warm yellow glow across the bushes, with a pale moth perched on top; blue dewdrops hang in the air, small yellow and lilac flowers grow in the grass, fireflies dot the dark, and a gray moon peeks between the trunks at the top right
Searched “night forest platformer.” Brought a lantern.

Old Oak Climb goes straight up a giant tree. Its sky is apricot going plum, the woods sink away below as you climb, and the ground is bark: deep wavy grooves that join from tile to tile into long furrows, with a knot here and there. Where the trunk opens into a knothole or a hollow, you see dark heartwood with growth rings on the back wall.

Old Oak Climb at dusk: on the left, the trunk of the giant oak, its bark covered in deep wavy grooves and a few round knots, opens into a dark hollow of heartwood with pale growth rings on the back wall and three blue dewdrops over a strip of grass; Gilby, the little orange axolotl with gold gills, a blue raindrop mark and a green leaf scarf, stands at the start of a thin leafy branch that runs out to the right past a lit paper lantern with a moth on top; behind them are dark leafy treetops on gray trunks, pink clouds and a violet sky with stars, and another dewdrop floats below
People also ask: can an axolotl climb a tree?

The first two levels of Pitterplop are free to play in your browser at pitterplop.com. Mossy Hollow, with Glowcap Hollow and Old Oak Climb, comes with the full game, $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Pitterplop page.

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