Meet Friko, our mascot who changes as your practice level grows

Metronome.fm now has a mascot. Its name is Friko, after furiko, the Japanese word for the pendulum of a metronome.

About Friko

Friko is a pixel art character. Its body is a trapezoid based on a metronome, with a pendulum sticking out of its head. It loves listening to music, so it always wears headphones.

The pendulum always swings from side to side at 120 BPM, whatever tempo the app is set to. If your device is set to reduce motion, it stays still.

Its body takes on the app's accent color. Change the accent color in the display settings, and Friko changes with it.

Find it in the practice level section

The statistics include a practice level that goes up as you keep practicing. For now, Friko lives in the section that shows this level. Open the Year tab of the statistics, and it stands to the left of your level.

Your level goes up with experience points. You earn them for the time you practice, and also for completing the weekly quests in the statistics. As your level rises, Friko changes its look.

What it becomes is a secret

The Friko in the video at the top is one of the forms it takes after leveling up. We are not going to tell you what else it turns into, or how many times it changes. Keep practicing, level up, and see for yourself.

How we picked it, and how it is drawn

We started by drawing 16 candidates that looked nothing alike: a metronome, an eighth note, a snare drum, a cassette tape, an hourglass and more. From those, we took two, the metronome and the pendulum weight, and made 12 variations based on them. The one we chose in the end is today's Friko, wearing headphones.

The art is written as strings, one character per pixel. The swinging comes from flipping the picture horizontally on every beat. The body is drawn symmetrically, so flipping does not change its shape, and only the pendulum on its head seems to swing.

// # is the body (accent color), o is an eye, k is a line, . is transparent
const BEGINNER = [
  ".......k............",
  "........k...........",
  "........k...........",
  ".......kkkkk........",
  "......k.###.k.......",
  ".....kk#####kk......",
  ".....kk#o#o#kk......",
  "......#######.......",
  "......#######.......",
  ".......#...#........",
];

// On the off-beat (odd beat), flip horizontally around x = 9
const x = beat % 2 === 1 ? FRIKO_SIZE - 2 - col : col;

What's next

We plan to bring Friko to many other features besides the statistics. Look forward to seeing where it shows up next.