The Hexic HD Monkey

There's a non-zero chance that you've seen me use this icon as a profile picture in one of many places. I've been asked about it in the past, so here is an explainer.

Hexic is a 2003 tile-matching puzzle video game developed by Carbonated Games for various platforms. The game was designed by Alexey Pajitnov, best known as the creator of Tetris. The name is a portmanteau of the words "hexagon" and "hectic."

Hexic HD was released for the Xbox 360 on November 22, 2005. One feature available on the Xbox 360 was profiles for individual users of the system which included profile pictures known as "gamerpics." For some games, certain accomplishments (known as "achievements") would earn you rewards such as specialty gamerpics.

The monkey picture is one of those earned gamerpics for Hexic HD.

I used it as my gamerpic up until the release of the Xbox One. Prior to Microsoft retiring the old system of gamerpics, I downloaded the image from my Xbox Live profile and have been using it as a profile picture ever since.

Amazingly, in 2021, the image is still available on Xbox Live at: http://image.xboxlive.com/global/t.584107d1/tile/0/20013.