If you’ve at all been on Twitter and seen my pal Prince Watercress share an image of Knuckles the Echidna (from the Sonic the Hedgehog series) but in a blue color and wondered what that’s about, well, wonder no more — here’s the story of just what the hell that’s about.
Let’s go back, way back, to late 2008, when he and I met and became friends. We’re both gamers, and both fans of the classic Sonic the Hedgehog games. At this time I was heavily playing the games again, and at a point while playing I noticed something neat — if you selected Knuckles final battle (Sky Sanctuary Zone) using the level select / debug mode of Sonic 3 and Knuckles (or Sonic and Knuckles by itself) upon completing the stage the ending will play out as normal, with Sonic arriving in the Tornado to save Knuckles.
This part is scripted, and the game will show Knuckles’ sprite as that’s what it’s programmed to do. However, it still takes the color information from the character data, and since Sonic’s color data is loaded, what you get is a blue version of the Echidna known as “Blue Knuckles” to us.
This was over a decade ago. Since that time, many ways to play as “Blue Knuckles” have come to light in normal gameplay, but this was our first experience with the color-swap phenomena in such a way, and Watercress took it as kind of a signature thing for himself. Since then, I’ve made edits to Knuckles for him, usually blue but some other colors for the heck of it — even making stupid ones sometimes just to see what I could get away with.
It’s kind of become a Xadara trademark, in a way — he posts that damn Blue Echidna as a reply to everything, and the little Australian monotremes have become kind of a mascot for the site and our activities as well. We even have a term for when you really like or are enjoying something, which has its origins in this whole thing: Knucking.
For example, if you’re listening to a song you really like, you’re knucking to some good music. Or, a game you like could be something to knuck to, meaning relax or have fun with.
Stupid? You bet it is. A fun semi-inside joke? Absolutely. These are the kinds of things you get when two friends who are equal levels of odd happen to like the same things and have a similar sense of humor.
So, there you have it. The origins of the Blue Knuckles meme, as we use it, and a bit of back story on Watercress and I. Fun times.
Knuck [nŭk] verb
1. to do echidna things
2. to like or enjoy something