Video Game / Cun-Cun & Santi

A series of **Platformer** games, created by **XGraphics** for PC and **Xbox Live Arcade**. Known as *Earthcraft* in Argentina, it was released in America under the title *Cun-Cun & Santi.* It tells the story of the lazy and gullible Cun-Cun, his little brother Santi, and their Living Toys. The game features a story mode and secondary minigames, two of wich are unlockable.

While always known as ***Earthcraft*** in its home country, it was released elsewhere under the title ***Cun-Cun & Santi**,* named after the two main characters of the game. This carried over to the sequel, *Earthcraft 2,* wich was known in America as *Cun-Cun & Santi 2,* due to featuring the same main cast as before.

This trend of renaming the games after the main characters ended with *Earthcraft 3*, wich kept the original name in all versions of the game.

**NOTE: This page only contains examples for the *Cun-Cun & Santi* games. For examples of *Earthcraft 3,* click here.**

## **Games in the series:**

* ***Cun-Cun & Santi*:** An evil wizard named Menacor has destroyed his lair in an accident caused by himself with one of his magic spells, and when he sees Cun-Cun and Santis house he decides to take over it and claim it as his new lair. The brothers now must collect enough Jigsaw Pieces to unlock more areas of the house to reach Menacor and recover their house, with a little help from their Living Toys.
* ***Cun-Cun & Santi 2:*** Three years have passed since the events of the first game, Cun-Cun, Santi, Tigre and Lotto live peacefully, until they hear a rock explode in their balcony, its Menacor back again, and now has summoned his five Spirits of Power. He escapes through a portal and Cun-Cun and the gang decide to go after him, when he sees them, Menacor kills Morado and escapes, leading to the start of the game. The brothers now must collect every five Jigsaw Stone to weaken the five Spirits of Power and stop Menacor again.
* ***Earthcraft 3*:** Dampy is a boy from Cumbaville who loves to explore and beign curious and nosey. One day, however, the weather starts acting crazy and the laws of physics seemingly start to alter, so Dampy goes to find his favorite toys, Crocky and Gaither, to figure out whats happening. Turns out the ominous influence of Dark Magic (implied to be from Menacor back in *Cun-Cun & Santi*) is affecting the place. So now its up to Dampy, with his innocent and happy mind to prevent him from beign influenced by the Dark Magic, to find all the Golden Jigsaw Pieces left from the five fallen Spirits of Power, to stop this chaos once and for all.

## **Cameos and Crossovers:**

* ***Super Racing DX:*** Appearing as an **Early-Bird Cameo**, Cun-Cun made his debut, though without Santi, as a heavy racer in the original release.
* ***Earthcraft Bash:*** A Platform Fighter featuring (**almost**) every character that has appeared in any *Earthcraft* game, put to fight each other in a similar fashion to *Super Smash Bros.*
* ***Earthcraft All-Stars:*** Small re-releases of the first three games in the series, with slighlty updated graphics and fixed bugs and errors.

## Big guy and little guy bring examples of:

* **100% Completion:**

* The first game:
	+ Only 50 of 100 Jigsaw Pieces are required to reach the **Final Boss**. There's also a double-health upgrade in exchange for four more Jigsaws, bringing the total number necessary to unlock everything to 98. The last two Jigsaws don't do anything, but getting all 100 allows you to see a bonus ending that reveals the locations of the Stop 'n' Shop Trolley items.
	+ The Cake pieces that extend your health bar are completely optional to find — you can skip at least six of them, since the last six don't increase your health bar any further. But they are a nice benefit to have, especially when you fight Menacor, and the XBLA version at least gives you an achievement for your trouble.
	+ Collecting all of 50 of the Lotto Tokens is not only optional — only 35 are needed — but nearly impossible due to glitches in ArcadeLand Swamp and Big House Blues. For some reason, two of them in ArcadeLand Swamp share the same flag number, so without a workaround one will disappear when you collect the other. There is a different issue in Big House Blues that has a similar effect; two of the Tokens are in close enough proximity to each other, one will vanish when you collect the other, because of overlapping proximity regions.
* *Cun-Cun & Santi 2* has a *lot* more emphasis on backtracking, and the game's levels are larger. But it's slightly more lenient in requirements; you only need 40 of the game's 70 Jigsaws to reach the final boss. Collecting all 70 just gives you a sequence spotlighting all the characters as a meager bonus reward, and only 765 of 900 Pencils are needed to learn all skills. The cake pieces and Buho sticks are helpful, but completely optional.
* **Ability Required to Proceed**: The first two games have mandatory abilities you have to learn, and you won't get far without them. For example, the first game forces you to learn the Spiky Shoe-Trot from the first level in order to even get beyond the lobby of The Big House. *2* takes this even further due to having a lot of context-sensitive moves you have to learn to even get anywhere in its massive worlds, much less get a Jigsaw Piece right away.
* **Absurdly Spacious Sewer**: Bathroom Waltz certainly seems to be a sewer of *some* description. It's full of pipes, anywho. Then there's the Bathroom *Quest* minigame in the second game where you shoot at... jelly blockages in the... air conditioning?
* **Abusive Parents**: Papa Mono seems to approve of Cun-Cun beating his son Monito (though they had it coming). While not his parent, Poppy is also just extremely neglectful, abandoning his little sister Clarita at Christmas in order to go watch the Big TV instead of buying her presents, or...you know...*just knowing where she is*.
* **Adventure Duo**: Cun-Cun and Santi, of course.

* **Always Night:** Its always night if you look from the window inside the Big House. Also several levels are also always at night.
* **Amusement Park of Doom**: ArcadeLand Swamp, which even has its own themed sections... that all try to kill you.
* **Ambiguously Human:** Menacor and Felipe.
* **Animate Inanimate Object:** Characters that arent **Living Toys** but are alive anyway, such as Uracha the coat hanger.
* **Art Evolution**: While the in-game models had remained the same in all two games, the artworks of the characters subtly evolved through the first few times. In particular, between *1* and *All-Stars,* the characters's look softened and all of the characters became slightly more cartoonish.
* **The Artifact:** Some of the moves from *Cun-Cun & Santi* seemingly became this in *Cun-Cun & Santi 2,* except ones that where always used for more practical reasons, like Santi s Spiky-Shoe-Trot used for faster movement and the Horn Stomp, used to traverse larger distances faster.
* **Artificial Brilliance**: Oddly, the AI for the enemy Cursed Panzas that chase you is a tad smarter than the rest of the game's mooks. For example, in Poyos Cave, he will actually chase you around the rocks instead of mindlessly running into them after you like most enemies would.
* **Artificial Stupidity:**
	+ The AI for Menacor's mooks is dumber than Cun-Cun himself. It's most obvious in *2*, where many enemies won't even so much as blink at you, even if you're right in their line of sight, unless you're standing directly next to them or a few feet in front of them. When you control the giant robot in Amusemeland, the crows will *still* try to attack you instead of fleeing like the Guard Dogs, even though they will die on contact with you.

* **Bee Afraid:** Stronger enemies in the form or bees or bumblebees appear in some levels. Particularly on Caracol Mountain wich isnt even a level but the part of the general hub of the game. They are impossible to kill.

* **Bigger on the Inside:**
	+ Even before you factor in all the levels in The Big House, that place is *enormous* in comparison to the outside. When you actually do factor in the levels, there has got to be either some kind of magical teleportation going on, or Menacor can fold three-dimensional space like no-one's business.
	+ A lot of interior locations (too many to list) would qualify. ArcadeLand Swamp's Engine Room and Bolsy's Boiler are just a few examples.
* **Berserk Button:** If you refuse to let Morado taught you the basic moves, he will threaten to erase your game pak, though he doesnt actually does it.
* **Big, Thin, Short Trio:** Cun-Cun (big), Tigre and/or Lotto (Thin), Santi (short).
* **Bizarrchitecture:** The Big House, it has two floors, the Big Bedroom, a Kitchen and Comedor and Living Room all in one big room, two small health centers, chimneys all over the place, and its much Bigger On The Inside. Its also sometimes represented as a wood-like place, **Depending On The Artist**, such as in the Anime adaptation. And lets not even begin with the levels themselves...
* **Black Comedy:** Quite a lot. *Especially* in *2*.
* **Body Horror:**
	+ Embodied by Clinker, the garbage compactor. He resembles a shark made of scrap metal, and at first glance he seems to be a robot. Then you enter him, and find out that his interior shows remnants of organic material, crudely patched together with mechanical parts. The implication here is that he had once been a living creature, and was later reconstructed into a (fully sentient) waste disposal system. It doesn't stop here, though. The longer you think about it, the more you notice how many things are wrong with Clinker's anatomy. It is impossible to tell if Clinker is a whale or a shark, since he has both gills and a blow-hole (with a metal bolt in it). His gills are directly connected to his stomach. His body is filled with sharp, rapidly moving metal objects. His spine is located in his front, rather than his back. Weird parasitic tentacle creatures are growing out of his flesh. The list can probably be continued even further.
* **Bubblegloop Swamp**
	+ ArcadeLand Swamp is seemingly situated in or near a swamp.
	+ BolsaFlex Inc. in *2* is situated in a swamp, though most of the level takes place inside the factory.

* **Chekhov's Gunman:** In *Cun-Cun & Santi*. The Ña-Ñas seem to be not much more than distressed NPCs for you to collect. But at the end of the game, they turn out to be crucial in turning the tide against Menacor, and the final blow is delivered by the the Great Ña-Ña.

* **Checkpoint Starvation**: There are no checkpoints in the original game. If you die, you return to the world's warp pad.

* **Christmas Episode:** Freezy Snowy Hill, complete with holiday advent calendar entrance. It even comes with a few Saving Christmas challenges, such as rescuing a Christmas tree and ornament from being scrapped, and collecting Christmas presents for sad children.

* **Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:** Some side characters from the first game are nowhere to be seen in the second, these include Linterna, Papa Mono and Monito, Nico, Felipe, Ghost Hand, and a few of the Ña-Ñas.

* **Circus of Fear:** ArcadeLand Swamp in *Cun-Cun & Santi* and Buttock Circus in *Cun-Cun & Santi 2.*

* **Cloudcuckooland:** Crashy-Crash Party in *Cun-Cun & Santi.*

* **Compilation Re-release:** While not wholly Cun-Cun & Santi-focused, ***Earthcraft All-Stars*** does contain *Cun-Cun & Santi* and *Cun-Cun & Santi 2.*

* **Convection Schmonvection:** Menacor's Furnace Fun in *Cun-Cun & Santi*, as well as a few other regions of Cun-Cun and Santis house-turned lair. Trembling Sweaton (Lava Side) in 2.
* **Corrupt Corporate Executive:** Menacor is quite the entrepreneur. He owns a fairground (replete with deadly rides), a polluting factory, and a dockyard. Presumably, his employees are not union.
* **Cuckoolander Commentator:** Menacor during the game show at the end.
* **Darker and Edgier:** *Cun-Cun & Santi 2* compared to the first game, even though it kept the original's self-awareness and silliness. While the first game's plot is simply about recovering your house, *Cun-Cun & Santi 2* is about avenging the death of Morado, the destruction of Cun-Cun's house, and the overall sabotage of Caracol Mountain after Menacor was rescued by the Spirits from the boulder that had him trapped for five years since his defeat in the first game. The game's levels are also less bright and whimsical than those of the original, and in one of them, there are sidequests involving the resurrection of deceased characters. Lastly, the game has more black humor. Subsequent games in the Earthcraft series also started to follow this more serious trend, particularly *Earthcraft 3*.
* **The Dead Have Eyes**: Menacor in *Cun-Cun & Santi 2*... they do sometimes fall out, though.
* **Deadly Gas**: Several examples.
	+ Bathroom Waltz has a couple caves filled with green gas that depletes your air meter as if you're underwater.
	+ A couple mini-games in BolsaFlex Industries Inc. will leak a suffocating gas if you botch them.
	+ One area inside a lava-filled cave in Trembling Sweaton is apparently full of noxious fumes, even though nothing is visible, as you'll lose air when you're in the room. Then again, it may simply be normal air that's too hot to breathe safely.
	+ Inside the cheese wedge of Air Head Madness, apparently the smell is so bad that Cun-Cun loses air, albeit a lot slower than in other instances of deadly gas.
* **Deadly Rotary Fan:** Clinker's belly contains rapidly-moving fans with serrated blades, while the Madere Port is fitted with deadly propellers (the ones at the back of the ship underwater are **One-Hit Kill** propellers). They return in *2* as part of the pipelines leading from Buttock Circus to BolsaFlex Industries Inc and Salty Mines. The only way past them is to wait for them to stop, then rapidly passing through.
* **Death Is a Slap on the Wrist**: Starting with *2*, you have infinite lives, plus the score was removed (which was later added to the Live Arcade port of the original game), meaning you don't have to collect every item in one go.
* **Deletion as Punishment:** Talk to Morado enough times and he'll eventually threaten to delete your save data.
* **Dem Bones**
	+ the original game has humanoid skeleton enemies in Spooky Tree House called Restones.
	+ In *2*, Menacor was reduced to a living skeleton.

* **Invisible Parents:** Cun-Cun and Santi´s parents are never seen and are only mentioned in the manual story.