Putt-Putt Joins the Parade – Won!

What keeps those eyebrows linked to the car?

Daddy of the Teletubbies Sun?

That yawn is just plain creepy

And there are teeth. He even washes them

The game wastes no time in introducing my main goal: Putt-Putt hears from the radio that there’s a parade to be held in town and immediately wants to join it. Before I’ll tell you how that goal is achieved, let me go briefly through the game interface.

Basic interaction couldn’t be simpler: wherever the usually transparent arrow turns white, there’s a hotspot to be pushed. The difference is pretty subtle and it took me a while to even notice it.

What’s fun is that hotspots are almost everywhere, and a lot of them hide clever animations and gags. For instance, at the starting screen you can draw the curtains and find a frog behind them, and then, pushing the frog at the right moment, you can make it catch a fly with its tongue. Or, you can add some cereals and oil to the bowl and make Putt-Putt eat some breakfast (let’s not discuss about car biology here).

Large part of the screen is taken up by the dashboard. There’s the gas gauge, which does get lower when you move around – there’s a place where you can fill your tank, but I’m not sure what would happen, if you tried to use up all your gasoline (again, let’s not talk about car biology). There’s a honk and a radio, with which you can play two different music channels. Finally, there’s a large container for inventory, and on my table there’s one coin which I can take as my first item.

Getting out of Putt-Putt’s house, I soon found my first real obstacle – a cow had parked itself on the road and stopped my journey to the town. I spent some time trying to find an item that would have helped me, until I came up with the obvious answer – cow stepped aside, if I just honked.

Car Town

Getting to the town, I went first to speak with the local fire engine, Smokey, who gave me some further instructions on how to get to the parade. I should find myself a pet and a balloon and I should either get a wash or a new paint job. Both car wash and car paint required money, but I could deliver some groceries and cut some lawn. Smokey also borrowed me his lawnmower.

Did he grow to be so big or was he just built that way?

Continuing counterclockwise, I went to a car paint, just to notice that I needed more money to enter it. The next stop was a toy store. The owner spoke with me for a moment, but then she left somewhere. In addition to hotspots with animations, I found a magnet and couple of optional minigames.

I really don’t understand what I am supposed to do here. I can push the spring on the right to get a ball, and then I can use the wooden pegs to control where it bounces, but there is no obvious goal where I should direct it.

Lot simpler than in Dr. Brain

I also found these guys, who ask silly riddles from one another

I went then to car wash, where I also needed more money, and to gas station, where I could fill Putt-Putt’s tank. Finally, I went to Baldini’s general store, where I found a sack of bird seeds and got a gig for delivering groceries.

A car with a mustache?

The local highway

Moving beyond town, I came to crossroads, with heavy traffic blocking Putt-Putt’s journey again. The trick was to press the traffic lights, which then turned green for me. Now, there were three coloured roads to follow. Mr. Baldini had asked me to deliver the groceries for someone who lived at some of the coloured roads, while Smokey had noted that apartments at another coloured road required lawn mowing. Yes, I hadn’t written down the colours, and since the game doesn’t have any text, I couldn’t even look up the info on my screenshots. So, I just went through all the coloured roads, starting with the red road.

Before getting to the red apartments, I had to get through a bunch of nails that someone had left on the road. I had an obvious solution with me.

A magnet!

The red road was the one where I had nothing to do (I wonder if it is random, which coloured roads have something to do). Still, I went through all the houses, chatting with cars, who often had stereotypical voices.

Like this French car with a French accent

And the Eiffel tower…

…is also a rocket!

Moving then to the green road, I again had to get through an obstacle. This time it was a flock of birds. The solution was again quite obvious.

Skewering them?

No! Throwing seeds

On green road I finally found the car who wanted the groceries.

The green 3 on the groceries might have been a hint

The blue road was blocked by yet another obstacle.

A marching band of mice. Luckily, all I had to do was to play my radio and the band would march away

The inhabitants of the blue road were eager to see their lawn mowed. It was time to do a minigame, four times in a row.

As boring as in real life.You press the button and the car goes there

I was now a lot richer. I had also found at one lawn a bone, which I would use quite shortly. You see, after visiting all the coloured roads, I went instead east from the crossroads. At the end of the road, I found a dark cave.

A puppy!

Look, a bone

Now I have a pet with me

Going west from the crossroads, I came to a movie theater.

She’s lost her child

Where’s the Cardo?

After finding the child of the mother card, I got a balloon as my reward. All I had to do was to use my money for a car paint or car wash.

There goes interior decoration

I was now awarded the top spot at parade.

That was it, I had finished! This was certainly one of the shortest game we’ve played

Total time: 55 minutes