Cubivore: Gotta Eat ‘em All!
There’s 1000 Koroks to collect in Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. There’s 52 bounties to collect in Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. There’s 30 missing ship parts in Pikmin. There’s 24 Unusual Gems to find in Skyrim. There’s 243 Riddler puzzles to find and solve in Batman: Arkham Knight. There’s 100 feathers to find and deliver in Assassin’s Creed 2. There’s 94 memories to find in Alice: Madness Returns to help Alice find the truth of her family’s demise. There’s 31 demon-toys in Doom Eternal to collect. There’s 120 Stars to find and collect in Super Mario 64, and 120 Shine Sprites in Super Mario Sunshine. There’s 20 singing crickets to find in various Mongol camps in Ghost of Tsushima. There’s 151 Pokemon to find, train, and catch in Pokemon Blue, Red, and Green. Finally, and most important for this essay, there’s 150 mutations to collect in Cubivore.
I could keep going, but I think I’ve made my point.
Collectathons are not anything new to the medium of videogames, but they are a more frequently occurring element in several contemporary titles which has become, depending on your perspective, a fun activity or an aggravating chore. To clarify for my reader, a “collectathon” is a term used to describe a story element of videogames where players are encouraged to track down and locate various items within the world of the game. These items can be anything that fits the narrative and/or aesthetic of the game. These quests are unique in the fact that sometimes they are presented as a side-quest to the player, but at times they are also employed as the main narrative.
For example the 243 Riddler-puzzles in Batman: Arkham Knight are not required in order to complete the main storyline of the game. It’s entirely possible to leave all of the trophies, breakable objects, and riddles unfound and still manage to defeat Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight. The “collecting” of all of these puzzles really just allows the player to explore Gotham City as well as further familiarize oneself with the game mechanics.
If I compare this to Super Mario 64, where collecting the stars is the main storyline, the collectathon is no longer just about filler. But that game is unique because Mario has to find only 70 stars to finally face and defeat Bowser, leaving 50 stars that are optional. It’s up to the player to decide if they want to challenge themselves and find all of them.
Each game approaches the collectathon in their own way, and more recent games have begun using collectathons as optional side-quests that give players in-game benefits should they decide to do so.
Cubivore’s collectathon follows the second path.
However, before I continue I probably should remind myself that few people seem to remember Cubivore. Most of the people I've ever asked about the game have no actual memories of it, or, at the very least, they have a passing impression of the game.
So, let me give some background before we hop into the details.
Released in 2002 in Japan under the title Dobutsu Bancho (which roughly translates to “Animal Boss”), Cubivore was released in North America under the title Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest. The game was moderately well reviewed, but due to a very limited run (exact numbers are not available leaving only room for speculation) Cubivore did not sell very well and now exists as a rare collector’s item. Whenever the game does appear these days it’s typically in listicles about “Rare” or “weird” or “expensive” videogames.
So, what is Cubivore about?
Well, it’s about Eating.
And mating.
And getting eaten.
For this essay, I’ll focus on eating.
Cubivore’s plot is about a sentient pig, who later becomes a bear and then a bird, who is trying to return color (the essence of nature) to the land and thus save the world.
Listen before you say anything, I know, this game is a LOT dude.
Please just trust me and go with it.
The player is told, in an opening cutscene, that the world used to be filled with color, and Cubivores of every hue and species roamed the land free and content. However, the peace was disturbed by creatures known as “Colorless Beasts,” metallic colored Cubivore who ate up all the color and “essence” of the land which turned into special limbs called “Raw-Meat.” Their leader, a beast known as Killer Cubivore, holds every type of the Raw-Meat and his hunger was unrelenting causing the land to become consumed in white. This isn’t just a metaphor either, there’s a clip that shows the land turning into literal solid white fields and two cubivores struggling to walk through it before collapsing to their death. The protagonist, the young pig, begins the game afraid for his future and says to the player, “I want to live. That was my first thought. I want to be alive”
From here the collectathon begins.
The character’s name at the start will be Piggy[X]. I’ve employed the [X] here as an algebraic tool because his name can be whatever the player wants it to be at the start of the game, including the word “butt.” Be real though, that joke was only funny in Pokemon when your rival wants to fight and the screen reads, “YourButt wants to fight.”
To keep it simple I’m going to use the name Bob.
PiggyBob.
I just like how that sounds.
PiggyBob is born and literally dropped into a nest. He leaves the nest and begins to explore the world discovering bugs, love bits, minigames, and eventually other Cubivore. Each level has a variety of Cubivore that come in different colors and I learn from playing that each color designates its own species. Reds are Redapeds, Blues are Bluocytes, Yellows are Yellowbrates, Purple are Purpials, and Gray are Greyodons. Each of these species has their own unique benefits (except Purpials who suck (I will die on that hill)) and each color has a unique ability. What’s most important for the long-game of Cubivore is not so much getting the highest color stats, but rather to consume as many different Cubivore that you can so that you can mutate.
Also, forgot to mention this, Piggy Bob is a cube. That isn’t a metaphor, his body is literally a cube. And the mutations he experiences are changes of color and configuration of his various limbs.
Listen.
I know. I told you.
This game is a lot dude.
Cubivore’s collectathon (which sounds like a bad corporate sponsored PR event) is rather unique for collectathons because rather than the player acquiring a material item that is separate from the protagonists body (Riddler trophy, stars, Korok seeds, etc), Cubivore literally involves consuming the desired item, in this case colored limbs. PiggyBob must search for and fight Cubivore who are made up of colors so that he can consume their bodies and thus acquire their colors for himself. But it’s not even just the colors themselves. Within the game there is a need to collect a certain number of colors depending on how many limbs PiggyBob has. If PiggyBob only has one limb then all he must do is eat one Cubivore and he will mutate, but if he has three or more limbs he must locate and eat the same color limbs in the correct order to acquire more mutations. The margin for error here is also pretty tight because if you eat the wrong color in the wrong order, and that was the last Bluocyte or Yellowbrate in the field then you’ll have to start over. And I haven’t even begun to discuss how there are different shades of colors ranging from light, dark, clash, and rage.
Each time PiggyBob reaches the right number of the right shade and hue of color his body will change until, once he reaches 100 mutations, he will be able to fight and destroy the Killer Cubivore, the creature that threatens all of reality.
And then…that’s it.
That’s the game.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading and writing about Cubivore over the last few months. I’ve been working on a writing project about it that may wind up becoming something. If it doesn’t, and I’m unsuccessful I’ll make sure to update my readers, assuming I have any. But all of this time, research, and examination has given me plenty of opportunity to see how Cubivore’s collectathon differs from other games I’ve played.
Cubivore is an animal simulator riddled with puns, dumb gags, difficult controls, and a visual aesthetic that my girlfriend described as “Minecraftian.” She actually just said Minecraft, but Minecraftian is a lot more fun to write and say aloud.
Minecraftian.
Cubivore is also a game about change, and how players can impact change not just on their own minds and bodies but also the world around them. Before he is born PiggyBob is afraid, but over the course of the game he’s trying to change the world, and himself. Each mutation that PiggyBob acquires grants him a new physical form, and this new body can be a help or hindrance when exploring the various regions he encounters or, more importantly, when fighting other Cubivores.
This is important because I can’t think of another collectathon I’ve experienced that has employed a mechanic like this.
In Cubivore change is everything. Over the course of the videogame PiggyBob is literally collecting changes.
I collect changes to make the world better, for myself and others.
I begin the game as a small, pale, and pink pig. By the end of the game I’ve become a bird possessing dark and/or rage colors along with scars, a hump, horns, and a tongue.
The idea of altering a playable character’s physical form so drastically isn’t unheard of, it's just uncommon. There are plenty of examples of characters donning suits that can help in gameplay like the Tanooki Suit in Super Mario Bros 3, or the endless transformations of Kirby whenever he swallows one of his enemies, but this is ultimately a superficial change that can help with overcoming temporary obstacles. Cubivore’s mutation system will change how my character will jump, run, attack, and just interact with his environment. It alters how I’m playing the game until I acquire the next mutation and I have to start all over again.
Collectathons are typically about rewarding players who spend more time with a game, but Cubivore’s collectathon is built into the gameplay itself. For example, approaching one of the region's bosses having achieved only one mutation is possible, but if I’ve eaten a Purpial that fight is going to be more difficult because of the way PiggyBob now moves. The Scoutmaster Beast or the District Attorney Beast will almost certainly kill me in just a few strikes, and that’s not even including the two or three Greyodons that usually follow him around. By comparison, it doesn’t matter if I haven’t collected a single Korok seed in Breath of the Wild when I approach Calamity Ganon. Link’s body does not drastically change over the course of the game and so players enter into this fight familiar with the controls they will have to operate with.
Changing myself becomes the way to ultimately win or lose the game.
Just as important as the actual game mechanics is the narrative because as PiggyBob devours more and more Cubivores, the world begins to become richer in color. Defeating the Colorless beasts, and eating as many colorful cubivores as he can, PiggyBob is actively healing the world. Regions that were once muted in visual tone become filled with deep hues of green, and texture patterns on the cubic world that before were just general gatherings of pixels begin to show shapes of individual leaves and vines. The idea that PiggyBob’s actions have a positive, real-world impact upon the environment is a narrative structure that’s as effective as it is beautiful. Granted it’s a narrative that’s often hidden beneath PiggyBob’s insistent declarations of his desire to woo and mate with “the ladies.” Still, the effect on me remains the same. Collecting the colors means that nature has an opportunity to return to its previous state of equilibrium before the Colorless Beasts selfishly consumed it all for themselves.
Cubivore offers players a collectathon that’s more than just padded content to a videogame. It offers a mechanic that few games have attempted to impose on players, likely because many videogames are commercial enterprises that want players to get into a rhythm and comfort with a system and then just enjoy the remainder of the experience.
I’ll be honest and admit that Cubivore is not always a fun game to play, and sometimes it’s this mutation system that’s the cause of it.
What endures is the way Cubivore subverts the collectathon to create a gaming experience that’s as weird and unforgettable as the game itself. PiggyBob will not be the same person he was when he left the nest, desperate to eat and mate, he won’t even be a pig by the end of the journey! But life is, at its core, one series of changes after another as I try to make sense of a reality that’s constantly altering. I can be as much a part of that change as anything else, even if it’s just eating something.
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
12.25.2023
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All photos used in this article are screenshot sequences from a YouTube playthrough of the game by the channel known as Poe. I have relied on this play through often as I research the game and need reminders of particular sequences. Given the fact that Cubivore is an extremely difficult game to find physical copies of for a decent price, this play through is the quickest way to see the game (outside of emulation) and so I would highly recommend checking it out and giving the channel some likes. I’ve included a hyperlink above, as well as a second one below: