Fart across Amsterdam before the school closes.
Lactok is a one-button arcade game. A lactose intolerant dad, one litre of milk, and a broken bike. Tap to fart, hold to climb, release before you shit yourself.
Coming to the App Store.No waitlist, no preorder, no email to hand over. When it is finished it appears in the store and this page says so.
Placeholder art. The real thing is being drawn.
The premise
The bike is gone and school closes in six minutes.
There is no tram that goes there in time and walking is not a plan. So he drinks a litre of milk, which is a problem, because he cannot digest milk. That is the fuel. The whole game happens in the six minutes after that decision.
- He looks at the broken bike.
- He looks at the pickup reminder.
- He drinks the whole litre.
- The stomach makes a noise.
- You tap.
- He leaves through the front door, backwards.
Controls
One button. Three ways to use it badly.
There is nothing to learn and everything to judge. The same input that keeps you in the air is the input that ends the run, which is the entire design.
Tap
A short burst. Small lift, small cost. This is how you thread a bridge arch.
CheapHold
Continuous thrust that climbs properly, and fills the shit meter faster the longer one uninterrupted hold lasts.
Expensive, and it compoundsRelease
Glide. You lose height and the meter walks back down. Doing nothing is a real move.
Free, costs altitudeMeters
Three meters, and only one of them is on your side.
Milk
Fuel. Farting spends it. Bottles sit low over the canal, so refuelling means skimming the water, and every gulp also adds pressure you have to carry.
Pressure
Builds after drinking. High pressure gives you a stronger fart and less control over it, so there is a reason to hold it in before a big gap.
Shit meter
Fills from long holds, hits, and too much dairy. At a hundred the screen slows, the sound gets wet, propulsion stops and he goes in the canal. The score multiplier is highest just below that line, which is the joke and also the skill.
Hazards
Amsterdam is not helping.
No generic pipes. You fly through the gaps the city actually has: between gables, under bridge arches, over the tram wires, past whatever is being renovated this month.
- Tram cablesStrung exactly where the gap looks widest.
- Herring gullsThey aim. A hit is not fatal, it is worse.
- Open drawbridgeRising while you are still gliding towards it.
- Tourists in the bike laneStationary, unpredictable, four abreast.
- Swinging craneThe city is always being renovated.
- Low KLM approachLate game. You are not supposed to be up there.
The route
Five runs across town, each one a worse idea.
- Level 1
De Pijp to Museumplein
Rooftops, trees, one tram cable. The level that teaches you the button without saying so.
- Level 2
The Jordaan canal run
Narrow gaps between canal houses and bridge arches you have to line up before you commit.
- Level 3
Centraal Station
Ferries, scaffolding, crowds, and the first gulls that drop something back.
- Level 4
King's Day
Orange everywhere. Boats, banners, and drunk pedestrians who do not look up.
- Final
The Schiphol mistake
He overshoots the school, ends up next to a departing aircraft, and has to turn around on the last of the milk.
Between runs
Upgrade the man, not the physics.
What you buy between runs is digestive: a tighter belt to slow the meter, a bigger stomach for capacity, lactose pills that make the flying safer and weaker, an espresso for faster recovery, an emergency cork for exactly one mistake. Plus a raincoat, clogs, a football shirt and a moustache that steers better than it should.
Where it actually is.
The flight model, the three meters and the first Amsterdam level are playable. The art is placeholder, the other four levels do not exist yet, and there is no release date. That is the whole status, and it gets updated here rather than in a newsletter.
Want to say something about it, or ask for the Android version?support@lactok.com reaches a person.
Questions people ask
What is Lactok?
Lactok is a one-button arcade game for phones. You play a bearded Amsterdam dad whose bike is broken five minutes before school pickup, so he drinks a litre of milk he cannot digest and propels himself across the canals. Tapping farts, holding climbs harder, and both fill a shit meter that ends the run if it tops out.
When does it come out?
There is no release date yet. It is in prototype: the flight model, the meters and the first Amsterdam level are playable, and the art is being built. There is no mailing list and no preorder. When it is finished it goes on the App Store, and this page changes.
What will it cost?
Not decided. What is decided is what it will not do: no ads between runs, no energy timers, no paying to skip a level you already reached. Whatever the price is, you pay it once or not at all.
Is it suitable for children?
It is a fart game, so the humour is crude, but it is cartoon crude: no gore, no nudity, no swearing. The worst thing that happens is brown trousers and a canal. The final age rating gets set at submission and will be published here before release.
Does it need an account or an internet connection?
No. Lactok is designed to run entirely on the device, offline, with no sign-in and no profile. Your best score lives on your phone. That is a design constraint, not a setting, and it is why there is no account to delete.
Will there be an Android version?
iPhone first, because that is where the game is being built and tested. Android follows if enough people want it. Mail support@lactok.com if that is you.
Is this just a Flappy Bird clone?
It shares the one-button skeleton and nothing else. In Flappy Bird your input is free; here every fart spends milk and fills the shit meter, so the same button both keeps you flying and walks you towards a very public failure. The score multiplier peaks when the meter is nearly full, which means the correct way to play is to stay one tap away from disaster.