Turbo Pudding

TirraleeFrom the sketchbook

Five paint boxes for one tree

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

Near the top of the Skyward Tree at night: Tirra, a round apricot fledgling with a crest of three feathers, hops through the air in front of a big pale yellow crescent moon, with a slightly darker circle of night sky just visible where the rest of the moon would be, while Lee, a round lilac fledgling with a curl on top, a long tail feather rolled into a curl and sleepy half-closed eyes, watches from a ledge of periwinkle blocks with lavender tops on the right; small stars and short ledges float in the deep indigo sky around them, a faint lilac cloud hangs behind the ledges and a tall wall of blocks stands at the right edge

It’s Sunday, so the sketchbook is open. Between the roots and the nest, the Skyward Tree climbs through five worlds: the meadow, the woods, the rain, the clouds and the night, two levels each. Nothing in Tirralee is painted ahead of time: the code draws the whole game while you play, every sky included. And every world gets its own small box of paints.

That’s Tirra at the top of this post, hopping past the moon near the top of the Tree, with Lee watching from a ledge.

One recipe, five paint boxes

Every room is painted the same way, from the back to the front. First comes the sky: one color at the top that fades into another at the bottom. Then four clouds, stacked one under another, drift slowly to the right. Each cloud is just three round puffs, and each one drifts a little faster than the one above it.

Next come two rows of hills: a far one with long, lazy waves, and a near one with quicker, lower waves in a darker shade. The blocks, the heroes and the spirits go on top.

A world’s paint box is tiny. It has two colors for the sky, two for the hills, three for the solid blocks and three for the platforms you can jump up through. Some worlds also tint their clouds, and some add one extra touch of their own. That’s all it takes to turn the meadow into the night.

The meadow

The meadow sky starts pale blue at the top and warms to cream near the hills, and the hills are two soft shades of mint green. The clouds are plain white and a little see-through. The blocks are brown earth with a strip of grass along the top, and the platforms are a lighter, sandy brown with lighter grass.

Each block is a darker square with a lighter, rounded one inside it, and its corners only get rounded where there’s open air above or below it. A block with nothing on top of it gets the grassy strip and a thin white shine. And about one block in five gets a small, dark dot, like a pebble.

A meadow room on a bright day: Tirra, a round apricot fledgling with a crest of three feathers, and Lee, a round lilac fledgling with a curl on top, a long tail feather rolled into a curl and sleepy half-closed eyes, face each other from two tiny ledges of sandy brown blocks with green grassy tops, each ledge just two blocks wide, with a soft white cloud made of three round puffs floating right behind them; the pale blue sky fades lighter toward the bottom, two more small ledges sit at the left and right edges, and one block has a small dark dot on it
Searched “cozy game with clouds.” Four of them, all drifting right.

The woods

In the woods, the sky turns pale green at the top and soft yellow below, and the hills grow deeper and greener. The earth blocks get darker too, and so does the grass on top.

This world’s extra touch is a row of fir trees, spaced evenly along the far hill. Each tree is just two curves that meet in a point, so you get a soft, rounded shape instead of a zigzag. The trees come in slightly different heights.

A woods room: Tirra, the apricot fledgling with a crest of three feathers, stands on a ledge of brown blocks with green grassy tops at the upper left, and Lee, the lilac fledgling with a curl on top and a curled tail feather, stands on the grassy floor below at the right, looking back toward Tirra; behind them, two rows of green hills roll across a soft yellow sky, with a row of rounded dark green fir trees of different heights standing along the far hill, a long ledge across the top and dark brown walls at both sides
Typed “how to draw a fir tree.” Two curves and a point.

The rain

The rain sky is gray-blue at the top and fades to almost white, over gray-teal hills. The clouds get thicker here, less see-through than in the meadow. The blocks turn to slate gray-blue stone, and the grass on top becomes a strip of mint-teal.

The extra touch is the drizzle itself: 46 short, thin white streaks, slanting a little as they fall. The rain is drawn behind the blocks, so it never hides a ledge.

A rain room in gray-blue: Lee, the lilac fledgling with a curl on top and a curled tail feather, stands on a small ledge of two slate gray-blue stone blocks with mint-teal tops at the left, facing right toward Tirra, the apricot fledgling with a crest of three feathers, who stands on a longer ledge of the same stone at the lower right, beside a gray stone wall; thin white streaks of drizzle slant across the pale sky, another ledge hangs above Tirra, a small one floats at the upper left and a soft white cloud peeks in at the top
Search: “is it raining in the Tree?” 46 streaks say yes.

The clouds

Up in the clouds, the sky is pink at the top and cream at the bottom, and the hills are gone. In their place is a bank of big, soft clouds: two rows of overlapping round puffs, the back row pale pink and the front row white. The clouds in the sky are almost solid white. The blocks are pale lilac with white tops, and the platforms are nearly white, so up here even the ledges look like they’re made of cloud.

A cloud room in soft pink: Tirra, the apricot fledgling with a crest of three feathers, and Lee, the lilac fledgling with a curl on top and a curled tail feather, stand beak to beak on a small ledge of nearly white cloud blocks, in front of a bank of big round white cloud puffs that fills the bottom of the picture; on the right rises a tall stack of pale lilac blocks, and two small ledges with white tops float at the upper left against the pale pink sky
People also ask: can you stand on a cloud?

The night

The night sky goes from deep indigo at the top to soft violet at the bottom, over dark indigo hills. The clouds are a faint lilac. The blocks are periwinkle with lavender tops.

The night gets two extra touches. The first is 40 stars, each one twinkling out of step with the others, with every fifth star a little bigger than the rest. They stay out of the lowest part of the sky, so you’ll never find one down among the hills.

The second is the moon, up in the top right corner. It starts out as a full, pale yellow circle. Then a slightly smaller circle in the color of the night sky goes over it, a little up and to the right, and what’s left is a crescent. Look closely at the picture at the top, and you can just make out that second circle.

The sky stays put

When a room is cleared, the Tree’s updraft carries the fledglings up to the next one. During that ride, only the blocks move: the old room slides away and the new one slides in. The sky and the hills stay right where they are, and the clouds just keep on drifting.

The first two levels, the whole meadow, are free to play in your browser at tirralee.com. The full game, all five worlds, is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Tirralee page.

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