Puddle

A puddle is a small accumulation of liquid, usually water, on a surface. It can form either by pooling in a depression on the surface, or by surface tension upon a flat surface.

A puddle is generally shallow enough to walk through, and too small to support a boat or raft. Puddles can be a source of fascination for children. Small wildlife may be attracted to puddles.

Natural puddles and wildlife

Puddles in natural landscapes and habitats, when not resulting from precipitation, can indicate the presence of a seep or spring. They can provide essential moisture for small wildlife, such as birds and insects. Many butterfly (Lepidoptera) species need puddles for mud-puddling to obtain nutrients such as salts and amino acids.

Swallows use the damp loam which gathers in puddles as a form of cement to help to build their nests. The reduction in the number of puddles in the countryside due to intensive farming, urban sprawl, and climate change is partially the cause of a decrease in the swallow population.

Puddle (video game)

Puddle is a puzzle-platform video game developed by Neko Entertainment and published by Konami for PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Xbox 360. The game was also self-published by Neko Entertainment for Wii U, and for the PC through Steam, GOG.com, and Desura.

Gameplay

In the game, the player must guide a puddle of fluid to its target destination by tilting the scene, not by moving the fluid itself, similar to Nintendo's WiiWare game Fluidity. They must work with physics: friction, momentum, and the unique properties of each type of fluid and environment to send as much of each puddle past such obstacles as fires, rifts, spills and others, through environments like pipes, plants, laboratories, a human body, a sewer, a rocket, a foundry and a power station. The experience is physics based, making the fluid motion realistic. The game allows you to be a liquid like Nitroglycerin, and you need to guide it to a certain point. Nitroglycerin tends to explode, so the player must learn to carefully guide it.

Puddle (M. C. Escher)

Puddle is a woodcut print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in February 1952.

Since 1936, Escher’s work had become primarily focused on paradoxes, tessellation and other abstract visual concepts. This print, however, is a realistic depiction of a simple image that portrays two perspectives at once. It depicts an unpaved road with a large pool of water in the middle of it at twilight. Turning the print upside-down and focusing strictly on the reflection in the water, it becomes a depiction of a forest with a full moon overhead. The road is soft and muddy and in it there are two distinctly different sets of tire tracks, two sets of footprints going in opposite directions and two bicycle tracks. Escher has thus captured three elements: the water, sky and earth.

See also

Sources