Part of the Cyril the Cylinder category
Cyril is the main protagonist and the titular character of the Cyril the Cylinder series. He is a cylindrical creature who lives as an adventurer in the village of Plingplong. He is made up of four equally-sized segments, each serving a different purpose, who he can rotate, re-order and remove at will in order to traverse difficult paths on his adventures.
Cyril's origins are unclear, his earliest memory being him waking up from inside a cave. He discovered the village of Plingplong shortly after finding his way out of the cave, where he was promptly greeted by Reno, the village's leader. He went on a journey to recover a treasure that was stolen from the village, after which he decided to become a full-time adventurer.
Cyril possesses a warm, friendly personality, and aims to help out as many people as he can throughout his adventures. He is curious and inquisitive, which helps him discover small details others might miss, although it can also get him into trouble on occasion. Cyril has built up friendships with many of Plingplong's residents over time, although none are as close as his friendship with Reno.
It is not known how exactly Cyril came to be, or what kind of species he belongs to. Cyril's earliest memory is of him waking up from inside a cave, near the village of Plingplong. Cyril first learnt to use his segments to traverse tricky paths while making his way out of the cave, and discovered the village of Plingplong shortly after finding the entrance.
Wandering into Plingplong for the first time, Cyril garnered many curious looks from the village's residents. Cyril eventually came face-to-face with the village's leader, Reno. While she initially greeted him with hostility, Reno eventually calmed down after realising Cyril wasn't a threat, and she politely welcomed him to the village.
Cyril and Reno communicated for a while following their initial encounter. Reno asked Cyril questions about who/what he was and where he had come from, Cyril responding with arm gestures to convey his answers. Cyril was unlike any creature that Reno had previously seen, and so she was curious to know as much as she could about him. While his initial appearance (and smell) may have been off-putting, Reno quickly recognised Cyril as a friendly being who just so happened to be confused as to where he was, and was willing to offer him hospitality and shelter while he found his bearings and decided where he wanted to go next.
However, before Reno could do so, her exchange with Cyril was interrupted by a loud, raspy voice calling her name from behind. The voice belonged to the infamous thief Inko, who proudly announced to the whole village that she had taken their grand treasure, a small heart-shaped gem, from right under their noses, and dared anyone wanting it back to come and get it back themselves before running off into the distance.
Reno was absolutely devastated, as not only had the village's treasure been stolen from right under her nose, but she felt like she had failed in her duty as the village's leader to guard it. She quickly broke down sobbing, and many of the villagers rushed over in an effort to comfort her. However, it wasn't long before Reno felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Cyril, who explained the best he could using gestures that he wanted to go on a journey to get the treasure back for the village.
Reno's expression changed, not to one of joy but to one of concern. Reno stated that while she was thankful for his offer, there was no way she could possibly let him do that as the journey was far too dangerous, and she didn't want his first visit to the village to result in danger and peril. Cyril insisted, though. When asked why he wanted to get the treasure back so much, Cyril couldn't give a clear reason, only implying that he wanted to simply do a good thing for the village.
Despite Reno's discouragement, Cyril remained adamant that he wanted to get the treasure back for Plingplong. Reno told Cyril that if he succeeded, the entire village would forever be in his debt. Glob, another resident of the village, offered to help polish up his appearance and give him some adventuring gear so that he would at least be a bit more prepared for his upcoming quest. With the entire village now eagerly hovering around Cyril, he received a makeover from Glob, who polished his exterior and cut off a lot of the string plant growing out of him, leaving some to act as his arms and legs as well as hair. Finally, Clink offered him a spare pair of red rubber boots that she had lying around, and Glob managed to permanently bond them to Cyril's legs in order to help him along uneven terrain.
With a final wave goodbye from the village's residents, Cyril set off on the first of what would be his many adventures. It would be on this journey he would find his now-cherished bucket hat discarded in a meadow. He would also discover his pair of magical four-fingered gloves, which permanently attached themselves to his arms upon trying them on, and which would later have patches stitched onto them by Glob back in Plingplong.
Cyril would eventually return from his adventure after defeating Inko, a bit beaten up but ultimately successful. Upon returning to Plingplong, he was greeted with claps and cheers from the villagers, and a personal thank-you from Reno. At the end of Reno's speech, she offered to build a house for Cyril and for him to become an official resident of the village. Cyril joyfully accepted the offer, and from that moment on, although no-one could visibly tell, he knew he had found his community.
Over the years, Cyril would go from a mysterious cave-dwelling creature to a heroic adventurer known not just across Plingplong, but the world. He was especially recognised for both his friendly, selfless personality, and his sheer, unwavering determination to do what he felt was right. The question still remained, though: what exactly was Cyril? How did he come into existence? And most importantly, were his intentions truly benevolent, or was there something hidden beneath the surface? Was Reno wrong to trust Cyril at all? Perhaps one day, the answers to these questions may come to light, but for now, all we can do is hope that Cyril really is here to do the right thing.
Cyril is a cylindrical creature made up of four coloured, equally-sized segments. Each of his segments serves a different purpose; his face, arms and legs are each contained in their own segment, with another one being used for extra height. Cyril can move and remove these segments in any way he pleases, and is even able to move each segment completely independently. By default, Cyril keeps his segments in a certain order: from top to bottom, face, arms, height and legs.
Cyril's segments are made of wood. They were originally damp and rotting when Cyril first climbed out of the cave, but Glob was able to restore his appearance to like-new condition. The symbols enscribed on three of the segments appear to have been painted on, but his eyes are made of an organic material, similarly to other creatures.
Cyril's limbs are made out of string plant, a purple plant with a stringy appearance. The string plants originally grew out of Cyril while he was rotting within the cave. While most of them were trimmed off by Glob, he purposely kept four strings to act as his arms and legs. He also kept an additional string plant that had been sprouting out of the top of Cyril's head in order to give him a bit of personality. However, this plant is rarely seen as it is usually being covered up by his bucket hat.
Cyril wears a number of accessories that help him on his adventures. He wears a light-beige bucket hat on his head which holds great sentimental value to him. He possesses a pair of magical teal gloves with fingers, enabling him to hold and grab onto things with ease, although he is unable to take them off. He also has a pair of red rubber boots permanently bonded to the ends of his legs, which help him better navigate and balance himself on rough terrain, and which are affectionately referred to by Reno as his "gumboots". As the story progresses, he ends up wearing the heart-shaped gem of Plingplong as a necklace.
Cyril does not possess a voice, and instead expresses himself primarily through movement and gestures. He does occasionally write letters to those he wishes to have a more formal conversation with, though.
Cyril is well-known as a friendly, kind-hearted character who puts others before himself and strives to help out as many others as he possibly can. He considers even the briefest acquaintances as his friends and therefore treats everybody's troubles equally, a philosophy that, while rooted in good intentions, can prove to be overwhelming for him at points.
Cyril's closest friends are of course the Plingplongers. He is familiar with them all, and makes it his aim to spend time with each one of them when he can, being known to knock on others' doors unannounced.
However, perhaps the closest friendship Cyril has is with Reno. Cyril and Reno got to know each other a lot better after the former had returned from his first adventure, and the two quickly hit it off after discovering they had a lot in common. Since then, they have become extremely close friends, often going out on mini-adventures together and spending time at each others' houses. Cyril and Reno trust each other deeply, and it is rumoured that Cyril has become the only person who Reno would trust with her life. It is also rumoured that they may have romantic crushes for each other, although this isn't confirmed.
Cyril was first drawn during a collaborative Magma whiteboard session on Discord. I and a few other participants had been making random doodles on the whiteboard, when one of the participants challenged me to design a new character on the spot. With no immediate ideas in my head, I looked around my room and eventually came across a Bop-It Tetris machine I had lying on the floor. This machine made you rotate its two halves in order to play a selection of Tetris-based games, and this gave me the idea to design a character that was able to rotate themselves.
I ended up giving the character four segments to create the appearance of a stacked cylinder. I also gave three of the segments a symbol on the front, a decision mainly inspired by similar character designs featured in educational children's TV shows. It was also these shows that inspired the character's simplistic name; "Cyril" simply came from the first syllable of the word "cylinder".
After the Magma session was over, I continued to develop Cyril in my spare time. The original concept I had for him was to be a character who liked to play outside in a happy world, but who secretly showed signs of depression whenever he went back inside. While this particular story element never ended up being explored, I did create a single comic with this old canon in mind, which featured the debut of the Helpful Fish (who remains a character in the series to this day).
The character ended up getting very positive feedback and I was encouraged to keep developing it by several friends. However, Cyril ended up becoming dormant as I began to focus more on other projects.
Towards the end of 2024, I was having a conversation with a friend, specifically about platforming mascots from the 1990s. This suddenly gave me the idea to sketch out a concept redesign for Cyril, imagining how he would look as one of these mascots. This sketch featured the debut of his gloves and boots, which I deliberately made oversized in comparison to his limbs as that was how I thought a typical 1990s video game mascot would be designed.
As I started to develop more characters surrounding Cyril, the project (and by extension the character) started to take shape into what it is today. Eventually, I decided that Cyril would fit well as the protagonist of a puzzle-platformer game, in the role of a heroic adventurer, which is how the project has continued to be developed to this day. While there is not yet an actual video game with Cyril as the protagonist, it is one of my dream video games to make, and I'm hopeful I will get the opportunity to do so somewhere in the future.