Meet Jimothy.
A raccoon from Ballard, with half a spine and all of his legs, is joining the cast. He has a show of his own, and a song.
Switchback has a new resident. Jimothy is a raccoon from Ballard, in Seattle, and he is built a little differently: a short spine, a hunched loaf of a body, and four full-length legs underneath it. He is one of a kind, so a park only ever has one of him.
He is in my development builds today and joins the cast in a coming update. There is no date yet. In the meantime he has his own page, a one-raccoon show under a single lamp.
How he gets around
Mostly in a high-stepping prance, one forepaw curled. About one walk in twenty, he goes by forward somersault instead, tipping over his own edges and finishing each roll before he stops. When something startles him he bolts in a splayed, rocking scamper.
His neck barely turns, so when he wants to look at something he turns his whole body, on small tapping feet. He walks along fence rails, paddock rails and empty benches, hopping up and balancing his way to the far end.
When he has nothing to do
Left alone, Jimothy keeps himself busy. He spins on a joyful hop, rolls sideways across the grass, washes his paws, and sits up to look round. He stretches into a play bow with a yawn. He eats a blackberry from his hands. He scratches behind an ear with a hind foot, and grooms his ears flat with both hands.
And he dances: eight bars at 130 BPM, with a shuffle, a wiggle, a hop-spin and a paw in the air to finish. There is also a whistling march at 140, hop-hop on the left, hop-hop on the right, with music notes drifting off him.
About your visitors
Jimothy takes an interest in people. He climbs into a resting visitor’s backpack and rides along, peeking out, until they notice. He sits on heads. He follows walkers, and freezes whenever they glance back. He copies a child’s hops and spins. And he takes snacks.
Picnics most of all. From anywhere in the park he will find the blanket, creep round it with dead stops, and from as far off as his arm allows, reach a long way for the sandwich. Then he is off with it.
He also gets in the bins: up the side of a waste station or a dumpster, head first, a look out from under the lid, and out again with a little rubbish behind him for your crew to pick up.
His arrival
Once in a great while, in daylight, Jimothy does not walk in. He paraglides in on a small wing of his own, in lazy S-turns off the edge of the map, flares, runs out his landing beside a trail, and hops out of the harness. From then on, he lives there.
The show
Jimothy’s page is a stage: one lamp, one black riser, and his name hung behind him. It opens on his entrance, then Compac, Smol, six acts, and a closer look at how he is made. His song, “Jimothy, King of the Bay”, is there too, off until you turn it on.
Get Switchback while he settles in
Free on the App Store and Google Play, and coming to Steam. Jimothy joins in a coming update.
iPhone · iPad · Android · Free
When he arrives, keep an eye on your picnics.
— Kristian