Skins

Skin is the name given to the twelve backgrounds that can be selected to customize the colour palette and background of Nitrome.com.

History
When Nitrome first started out in 2004, they had only one skin, that one skin being the Classic skin. However, in winter 2007, Nitrome released a new skin. From then on, every year they released around two skins, although in 2011 a total of four skins were released.

Hints
Ever since the first skin, and starting regularly with the Party skin, Nitrome included hints towards future games. This is often done by including the main character from the game, alongside other components to be featured in that game.

All skins that featured a hint to an upcoming game have usually had true hints, this meaning that characters or objects that appear in the skin who have not appeared in a Nitrome game will probably in an upcoming game that year. Hints are distinguishable from other objects from the environment.

False hints
However, not all characters that were previously unseen appeared in an upcoming game. These characters are specially made for the skin. It was first and only with the Horror skin that Nitrome included false hints.

On four tombstones, visible on them were a few letters and a symbol. The letters and symbols in the skin were FN 0RP, FB?, DV 2009, and Nanobots RIP. FN 0RP and FB were references to Final Ninja Zero and Frost Bite 2, respectively, the latter which was released in December 2008. Nanobots RIP was a reference to Nanobots, and DV 2009 was a reference to Dirk Valentine.

On a branch is the weresquare, whose name and existence were revealed in the first Memory Lane post on the Nitrome blog. The weresquare was meant to appear in Square Meal 2, but due to production of the game being stopped temporarily in order to work on other games, and the entire game being entirely scrapped until four years later, the weresquare's name and that it was from an upcoming game were never revealed until that blog post. It was also revealed in the blog post that the game was never going to come out.

Colour
Starting with the Classic skin and ending with the Snowman skin (excluding the Party skin), all Nitrome skins had one base colour (that colour being the type of colour used in different shades throughout the skin).

This colour was pink for the classic skin, blue for the winter skin, green for the retro skin, purple for the horror skin, and white for the snowman skin. The possible reason for this colouring is that it was easier to draw the characters, instead of using the actual colours for the characters.

As Nitrome got more experienced pixel artists, this method was dropped, maybe because it would look better to have characters with all the colours they had when in a game. A homage to this type of colouring was shown in the Nitrome 2.0 skin, where the entire skin is pink with objects and characters in shades pink, while a road with many colours is stretching through the skin with many characters on it.

Along with paying homage to the one colour type of skins, Nitrome also showed how the making of skins had changed, by providing a bridge with many Nitrome characters in other colours. Although the one colour method was done away with at the end of 2009, and it could already be seen Nitrome was making this transition with all skins by showing the Party skin, part of the method is still being used.

As seen in usual skins today, the platform, walls, and objects on or in those platforms or walls still have a base colour and have objects coloured with shades of those colour, only the characters and game objects having the colours they had from the game they came from.

One example is the Factory skin, undesigned characters, walls, robots, and conveyor belts are all coloured in shades of bronze. Another example is the Ice Temple skin, the floor, walls, and water are coloured in shades of light blue.

Game
Starting with the Steampunk skin, and used for a few other skins released after that, some Nitrome skins are based entirely off a Nitrome game, and when based off a game will be released when the game is released. These skins will feature objects and characters from the based-off game, and also include some objects or characters exclusive to the skin.

Theme
All skins have a certain theme: the Winter Skin's theme is winter, the Party skin's theme is Nitrome reaching fifty games, the Factory skin's theme is construction, et cetera.

Website layout
Skins not only effect the background of Nitrome.com, but also the colour of the boxes on the site. For example, selecting the Classic skin will change the metal-like bars and buttons to pink. The skin changes the background and colour of the buttons of the website, no skins exclusively effect Nitrome.com other than changing the background.

Skin selector
On the skin page, the player has the ability to choose which skin they want to activate. All the skins at the current time are shown on the page, with a small square screenshot from each skin. The currently activated skin has a orange outline around it with the name of the skin shown at the bottom. When the player hovers the mouse cursor over a box, orange corner frames will appear around the skin, as well as the name of the skin. The skin can be activated by clicking on the appropriate box.

Skin settings
Players are also able to change their skin setting by going to the "Skins" tab on Nitrome.com. at the bottom of the page (below the skin selector) Are three options for choosing skins: latest skin, selected skin, and random skin.

Latest skin
Having the latest skin feature enables a cookie on the player's browser to automatically update the player's skin whenever Nitrome releases a new one.

Selected skin
Having the selected skin feature does not update the player's skin when a new one is released. Rather, the skin that is already activated will continue to stay so that no change will occur.

Random skin
Having the random skin feature also places a cookie in the player's browser so that whenever they visit the website, a random skin is selected as their background. The skin is only changed when the player leaves the browser. It does not work if it is turned on in another tab or the page is refreshed.

Skins

 * Classic - The original pink skin. Includes many unnamed things in it. Set in Hot Air's homeland.
 * Winter - A winter themed background mainly with winter-themed Nitrome characters. Set in the Thin Ice area.
 * Retro - A green background meant to resemble old game systems, particularly the Gameboy.
 * Horror - A purple background with various characters from that year each of which are a "zombified" version of themselves.
 * Party - A montage of a Nitrome character for every Nitrome game up to Ice Breaker: The Red Clan. Hinted the game Graveyard Shift
 * Snowman - An updated Winter skin. Included characters from non winter games and hinted Rubble Trouble and Tiny Castle.
 * Factory - A factory with Nitrome characters being built.
 * Ice Temple - A temple made of ice with frozen ice rivers and ice blocks around. Hinted Bad Ice-Cream, Rush, The Bucket, Canary and Steamlands
 * NES - A collection of 12 scenes from Nitrome Entertainment System games. Included Super Treadmill and The Bucket.
 * Steampunk - A skin taking place in the Wasteland of New Britannia. Dirk Valentine, the red pirate captain, and tank guns from Steamlands appear.
 * Nitrome 2.0 - A skin which mixes elements from the Classic skin and that of modern Nitrome games. Most of the skin is pink coloured and features a large amount of Nitrome characters - past and present.
 * 100th Game - A skin featuring the 100th Nitrome game, Nitrome Must Die.
 * Touchy - It features the release of Nitrome Touchy including Cuboys playing different games with their mobile devices.