January 10, 2026
Code a turtle, watch it poop!
Show HN: C-TURTL, a turtle graphics game
Tiny square turtles, DNA doodles, and poop jokes take over
TLDR: C‑TURTL lets you “program” a tiny turtle with simple letter commands to draw patterns, make babies, and, yes, poop. The crowd is sharing DNA links, calling it a delightful toy-meets-art experiment, and joking about messy vs clean aesthetics—proof that simple rules can spark big creativity.
Show HN just dropped a chaos machine: C‑TURTL, a tiny square turtle you steer by writing its “DNA” with letters. F = forward, L/R = turn, B = make a baby, P = poop, C = clean. The turtle “dies” at the end of its DNA, babies restart at the beginning, and the crowd is living for it. The thread turned into a gallery of generative doodles, with creator michae2 flexing favorites like this hypnotic loop while Atiscant chimed in with a simple verdict: “Great toy”.
Strongest opinions? A playful split between “it’s art” and “it’s a toy,” with folks racing to post the wildest DNA strings. There’s mini‑drama over the P button—poop trails are either “peak comedy” or “please, tidy your pixels”—and the C key is sparking clean‑freak pride. People love that simple rules (inspired by classics like L-systems and turtle graphics) explode into complicated patterns, and the baby‑turtle reset is getting “adorably brutal” jokes. Memes aplenty: “programming with poop,” “DNA stands for Do Not Argue,” and the inevitable “press F to pay respects” whenever a turtle dies.
Bottom line: this is an irresistibly silly sandbox that’s somehow also generative art. The community is clicking, tweaking, and sharing DNA like trading cards, and the vibe is gleeful, slightly messy, and very Show HN.
Key Points
- •C-TURTL is a turtle graphics game driven by a DNA-like instruction string.
- •Commands include F (forward), L (45° left), R (45° right), B (baby turtle), P (poop), and C (clean up).
- •The turtle dies at the end of the DNA; baby turtles restart execution from the beginning.
- •The turtle is visually represented as a simple square (■).
- •The project is inspired by Isabel Beach’s L-systems and Turtle Graphics and Susam Pal’s CFRS, with source and examples on GitHub.