Cyclops Snail

Tarclops
Element:	Water
Early Tarclops.jpg
Species:	Unknown
Gender:	Male
Role:	Skylander
World:	Skylands
First Release:	Spyro's Kingdom (scrapped)

Cyclops Snail is a scrapped water Skylander that originated from the early concept of Spyro's Kingdom. He was one of the original five characters planned for Spyro's Kingdom, but was ultimately cut and developed into his successor, Zap. During development, he went through a few name changes, Cyclops Slime and later Tarclops.

Development

Michael Graham, producer of the Skylanders franchise, described Cyclops Snail as a "little blue water slug that zipped around, left a little pool of sludge behind him, and he would scream and shoot electricity. He was just so weird — really fun, but totally bizarre. After some feedback, we changed him from blue to purple, but then it was 'you can’t have two purple characters, because Spyro is purple.' Then we got an early version of what Cyclops Snail's toy might look like, and we thought, 'Oh my gosh, these don’t look at all detailed, not in the way that we want them to be.’ He was revised again, made of oil and now called Tarclops, and that was the final straw. The character evolved so much, by the end, character designer I-Wei Huang at Toys For Bob felt that everything he liked about the character was gone, so we thought, let’s just scrap it — we’ve got to go in a different direction."

But in a way, you’ve already played as Cyclops Snail; you know him as Zap. "We reimagined the character," says Graham. "Same moves, actually; he plays exactly the same way as Cyclops Snail did. And even Zap went through a little evolution. His original concept didn’t have his scuba tanks, and we shortened his snout quite a bit."

Biography

A creature from the sea, Tarclops is slow on land but fierce in water. Many years ago, Tarclops was sent to the islands by his father, King Cyclops, to the find a stolen relic that belongs to their underworld kingdom.

Gallery

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  From Cyclops Snail to Tarclops
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  Tarclops Spyro's Kingdom character card along with Bomb Troll's
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  Tarclops as seen on the Water island of the work-in-progress scrapped Spyro's Kingdom webpage
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  From Tarclops to Zap
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Trivia

• Tarclops makes a cameo in Skylanders: Trap Team as the "Gloop Hat".
• Tarclops resembles B.O.B. from Monsters vs. Aliens.
  • Tarclops also resembles the Tar Monster from Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.