Cuboy

Cuboy (pronounced Q-boy) is the mascot of the indie game studio Nitrome. He made his first appearance as a face on Nitrome.com's first favicon. In certain Nitrome games, he has made several cameo appearances, but does not make an appearance as an interactive game component.

Etymology
Cuboy's name is derived from the words Cube and boy, from his shape, and his gender.

History
Cuboy was created by Mat Annal for Nitrome.com 1.0. At that time, Cuboy had no name and was likely not meant to be an official Nitrome character. Mat Annal created Cuboy by drawing a pink square and giving it the face of Hot Air. .

Later, when the NES skin was being created, as a joke, Jay D. Smith drew Cuboy with arms and legs and put him into the skin. When Nitrome was overhauling the site to Nitrome.com 2.0, Stefan Ählin often drew Cuboy for use on the site.

Physical appearance
Cuboy has two appearances, his modern appearance used mostly for Nitrome blog posts, and his classic appearance, his most widely used appearance.

Classic appearance
Cuboy's classic appearance, which is Cuboy's regular appearance, is Cuboy's most widely used appearance. This appearance depicts him as a pink coloured square with two white rectangular eyes, purple cheeks, and a mouth appearing as a D shape rotated on its side. Although he originally appears pink, in some games, he does not always use have this color when featuring him as a cameo.

Notable appearances
The classic square appears in the 100th Game skin together with another cuboy in the background but saddened with crossbones.

Cuboy's classic appearance and his name appears on the Profile button of Nitrome.com 2.0.

In the NES skin, many differently-coloured classic appearance Cuboy faces appear.

Modern appearance
Cuboy's face also gains a modern appearance, shape has rounded corners, and the same with his limbs. His overall face is also smaller.

Cuboy's modern appearance was first used on the Nitrome blog, and has been used for various art throughout Nitrome.com. Cuboy appears as he does when in his square appearance, only bigger, his face having more detail, and that he has two small little legs and two small little arms.

Alternate appearances
Cuboy has not appeared as his regular self all the time; he has appeared differently multiple times for different occasions.

Friday updates
Cuboy's appearance is sometimes altered to commemorate certain occasions.


 * Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee(date unknown) - Cuboy is shown in the Friday update wearing a hat and holding two flags.
 * Winter 2011 - To celebrate the winter holidays, Nitrome dressed Cuboy in a Santa hat, with snow falling in the background.
 * Touchy's release - Cuboy is shown with wings and an angelic expression on his face on the first Friday update after Nitrome Touchy was released.
 * 90% completion - Cuboy wears a Viking helmet in the Friday update of November 16, 2012. This update announced Icebreaker iOS' progress of passing the 90% mark to completing development of the game.
 * Android release - Cuboy wears an Android costume and is placed between two Nitrome Touchy devices.
 * Flightless - Cuboy wears the same hat the ducks in Flightless wear in the Friday Update of December 7, 2012.
 * Winter 2012 - Similar to the winter of 2011, Cuboy is shown wearing a Santa hat. At the same time, he is being kicked by a vanilla ice cream character. This update, posted on December 21, 2012, was to correspond with the release of Bad Ice-Cream 2, also on the same day. His speech bubble reads, "Merry Christmas!"
 * Winter 2013 - In this update, posted on December 20, 2013, Cuboy appears as a snowman. This blog post was announcing Nitrome leaving the office for Winter break, so Cuboy's speech bubble reads "We're off!".
 * Icebreaker A Viking Voyage Android release - Cuboy appears as a viking next to a pink hammer with a Cuboy face on it.
 * Nitrome Jam - Cuboy appears as a can of jam that has "2014" on it, which was used for the May 30, 2014 Friday update right before the Jam.
 * Upcoming halloween game - Cuboy appears wearing a hat in the upcoming game.

Thursday updates
Occasionally, Nitrome provides Thursday updates on their blog when they will not be at their office on that Friday. This is usually because of a holiday. In these Thursday updates, Nitrome sometimes uses an image of Cuboy saying "Thursday!?", indicating that it is not usual for there to be a weekly update on Thursday instead of Friday.

Other appearances
Another change for Cuboy came for the demo advertisement, which depicted a transparent Cuboy with only an outline of his body and face being present, giving the sense of a blueprint.

What seems to be an 8-bit Cuboy can be seen on the "Touchy" button on the Navigation panel, as well as a picture of his head on the Profile button.

NES appearances
Cuboy's NES appearance is Cuboy's least appearing appearance, given this name as it has only been seen on Nitrome Enjoyment System (NES) material. This appearance depicts Cuboy as having a rectangular body, being taller than in his modern appearance. Cuboy has two small, stubby hands and two small, stubby feet.

This appearance is not much different than Cuboy's modern appearance, other than this appearance (NES appearance) giving Cuboy a tad longer face, Cuboy's face lacking detail, and appearing more cube like.

This face also appears on the Nitrome seal of approval, Nitrome's parody of the Nintendo Seal of Approval.

History
After it was accepted as a Nitrome character on November 15, 2010, Cuboy began to appear much more often in Nitrome related content.

Cuboy's possible first appearance was when Nitrome.com 1.0 was launched, represented on the favicon for the site in his classic square appearance. His remained unnamed until November 15, 2010, when the first Nitrome blog post about the Nitrome Enjoyment System box revealed the mascot's name to be "Cuboy" on the Nitrome Seal of Approval. .

Prior to the revealing of his name, Cuboy could only be seen in a few site areas of Nitrome.com, but had not made any in-game appearances. It was after the revealing of Cuboy's name that he first appeared on the NES skin, previewing Nitrome Tetris.

With the release of Nitrome.com 2.0, Nitrome began posting Friday updates. Every Friday, highlights from earlier posts that week would be recapped. These posts would feature an image of Cuboy shouting, "Friday!" On special occasions, or when a Friday update is missed, the image would be altered to match the occasion. When Nitrome missed a Friday update, they instead opened with a similar Friday post, only with Cuboy saying, "Tuesday?" instead of "Friday!" Nitrome's December 22 update in 2011 featured an image of Cuboy wearing a Santa hat.

Appearances
Cuboy has made several appearances across multiple Nitrome media. Below is a list of all its appearances, sorted into sub-sections by game.

Cuboy game

 * Main article: Cuboy game

Cuboy appears as the hero of this Rainbow Island parody. Cuboy apparently can jump, walk on platforms, and throw hammers (all this evident from the screenshot of the game). Cuboy appears in his NES appearance.

Nitrometris
In an image taken from the NES skin, Cuboy appears as the host of a multiplayer Nitrometris. Tetris blocks used in the game (and Mega Mash) appear to have Cuboy's classic square appearance, these faces coming in pink, green, yellow, red, purple, and cyan. Cuboy in the NES skin image appears in his NES appearance, while the Tetris blocks appear in Cuboy's classic square appearance.

Hot Air series

 * See also: Hot Air (Character)

Cuboy's design of his face in its classic square appearance probably influenced the appearance of Hot Air's face, as both have the two rectangular eyes, purple cheeks, and happy mouth. This basic appearance was also carried over into Hot Air 2, where all balloons present in the game (minus the ones made in Hot Air Balloon Maker) were likely designed around Cuboy's face.

Although Cuboy did not appear in Hot Air 2, the house of his wife is obviously based off Cuboy's face, as it features the basic appearance of Cuboy's classic square face (rectangular white eyes, 2D circle cheeks, and happy mouth). This house seems to be the most Cuboy like, as along with having Cuboy's basic facial features, it is coloured pink.

Square Meal
The stone blocks in level one of Square Meal are arranged to look like Cuboy's classic square face.

Snot Put series
Cuboy's classic square face seems to have influenced the face of the snot.

Super Stock Take

 * Cuboy appears on the hat of the chimp.
 * Cuboy appears on the tie of the Nitrome Boss.
 * Cuboy appears as a block on a pink block in the game.
 * In the background of every level, Cuboy appears on:
 * a box on the middle row of the left shelf.
 * at the bottom of the right shelf is a box that has Plunger with the head of a Cuboy.
 * a pile of boxes - to the right of the right-hand shelf - has a Cuboy painted on to it
 * an elevator has a sign on it that has a Cuboy face and an elevator separated by a →.
 * Cuboy appears in yellow paint on a few boxes.
 * A type of 1x1 block has the face of Cuboy on it.
 * The ware of level three is a floppy disk with a Cuboy on it.

Cheese Dreams 2 demo
Cuboy informs the player about a new feature whenever the player goes up to an information hologram. Cuboy also informs the player about the game when the game is first loaded. Cuboy appears in his modern appearance.

Silly Sausage
Inputting the password "NITROME" will turn the background pink and turn all blocks into 16-bit Cuboy classic square face.

Test Subject Green
Dr. Nastidious's 'pda thingy', at the top left corner has a green coloured clasic square face Cuboy.

Steamlands
Cuboy appears as a flag in Steamlands, being able to be purchased on the level Super Paratrooper.

Nitrome Must Die
Cuboy appears in Nitrome Must Die in the startup and actually in game. In the startup, happy pink Cuboy faces appear in the background, only to be replaced with grey, frowning dark purple Cuboy faces with crossed bones beneath the faces.

Super Snot Put
Cuboy faces appear sometimes on the walls.

Rainbogeddon
The last level of Rainbogeddon, level forty, is shaped to look like the face of Cuboy.

Oodlegobs
Cuboy appears at the bottom-left corner of the large purple/grey computer in the preview for Oodlegobs.

Nitrome.com
Cuboy is used many times on Nitrome.com throughout the history of the side.

Favicon
The square face of Cuboy is used as the favicon of nitrome.com.

Cuboy face placeholders
On the Nitrome pages that had spots for games but no games to fill them, a rectangular, button shaped Cuboy face would be in the place where a link would be. The colour of this face depends on the skin selected. These buttons were replaced in Nitrome.com 2.0 with an outline of a section where a game would go, and a Nitrome.com 2.0 styled logo with a Cuboy face in it.

Friday blog updates
Cuboy currently appears in each and every Friday end-of-the-week update which Nitrome issues on the Nitrome blog.

Bottom navigation panel
Cuboy appears to the left of the words "© nitrome limited 2007-2012" near the far left end of the bottom navigation panel.

Demo advertisement

 * See also: Advertisements

Cuboy appears in his modern form on a blueprint, shouting (indicated by the ! in his speech). This version of modern Cuboy only has the outline of his modern appearance, in a style typical of blueprint artwork.

New Nitrome blog advertisement

 * See also: Advertisements

Cuboy appears in his modern form on a platform, shouting, "Extra! Extra! New Nitrome blog released!" as well as listing some new features. Clicking on the advertisement would bring a site user to the Nitrome blog.

Nitrome 2.0 advertisement
See also: Advertisements

Cuboy appears in his modern form on a platform, shouting, "Nitrome 2.0 is here!" as well as listing some new features about the new website design.

Nitrome logo
Cuboy's modernized square face appears in a speech bubble next to the Nitrome logo.

Contact page
On Nitrome.com 2.0, on a map showing where Nitrome is, Cuboy is used on the map as the location 'pin' of Nitrome's studio.

Icons
Cuboy has appeared on the icons of the top navigation bar of Nitrome.com 2.0.

Profiles

In the upcoming profile feature of Nitrome.com 2.0, Cuboy is shown on the icon in preview pictures. A picture of him is shown, next to a piece of paper that reads "Cuboy". .

Nitrome Touchy Cuboy appears on the television of the image.

Comments An upcoming comments feature for Nitrome 2.0 will soon be released. To confirm this, Nitrome released a short teaser conversation on December 12, 2012 on the left side of games between two Cuboys. The face of Cuboy appears as the avatar of the two Cuboys that are chatting.

Nitrome's Facebook page
In one of Nitrome's Facebook posts, they had an advertisement encouraging fans to vote for Flightless on Steam. In the advertisement, Cuboy is seen in the thought bubble of one of the main characters, the green duck. The Cuboy square also has a heart above it, perhaps implying that the duck loves Nitrome, since Cuboy represents Nitrome.

Skins

 * NES - Cuboy's Rainbow Island parody and Tetris game appear as screenshots in this skin.
 * Nitrome 2.0 - A satellite atop one building has Cuboy's face on it. Along with this, the bottom entrance of Nitrome Towers is based of Cuboy, with a large tongue coming out of the Cuboy entrance.
 * 100th Game - Purple Cuboy faces with an upside down mouth and crossbones beneath the face appear on the walls of this skin.
 * Touchy - Various 3D Cuboys appear, mimicking the appearance of characters that have appeared in Nitrome Touchy games.
 * Icebreaker - A Cuboy appears wearing a Viking helmet. Also, another Cuboy appears on the hammer of a statue of a Viking.
 * Kraken - A distressed Cuboy in an Android costume appears being grabbed by a large tentacle.
 * Jam 2014 - Cuboy appears as a jar next to the Nitrome Jam characters - to the icons is present.

Nitrome Must Die website
The favicon of the site is white Cuboy head that is constantly spinning. This head is possibly meant to be Cuboy's skull, fitting with the theme of the website of killing Nitrome. Interestingly, this is the only situation where the back of Cuboy's head is actually seen. The favicon also seems to look like Cuboy is wearing an Guy Fawkes mask.

Along with this, grey Cuboy faces are seen in the background, only having crossbones under the face, and on the face having an upside-down smile.

Nitrome seal of approval
The Nitrome seal of approval, seen on the box of the Nitrome Enjoyment System, has Cuboy in the middle in his NES form.

Nitrome Towers

 * Main article: Nitrome Towers

This version of Nitrome Towers has the bottom entrance given features that correspond to Cuboy's modern square appearance.

Nitrome Touchy
In the middle of the Nitrome Touchy app icon, Cuboy's smiling face can be seen on the controller.

Influences
Cuboy's face has been a major influence of Nitrome's early work. Many enemies of the Hot Air series have their face based off Cuboy's. Cuboy has not only influenced Nitrome's first series, but even the art of the snot from Snot Put. Even around the time of the NES skin, Nitrome used various forms of Cuboy.

Blueboy
The Nitrome Wiki mascot, Blueboy, was based purely off of Cuboy's modern appearance. It was created by recolouring an image of Cuboy using computer image editing programs (such as Gimp).

Following Nitrome's practice, Blueboy also serves as the favicon of Nitrome Wiki. Despite Blueboy being based purely off Cuboy, the favicon of the Nitrome Wiki (Blueboy mimicking Cuboy in his classic square form) is actually Cuboy's square face in classic style recoloured to look like Hot Air's face.