HAL Laboratory working on some non-Kirby projects
Over the past few generations, HAL Laboratory has primarily worked on Kirby games. We’ve seen a few non-Kirby titles here and there (most recently with BoxBoy!), but that character is certainly the studio’s bread and butter. Interestingly, BoxBoy! director Yasuhiro Mukae recently informed Kotaku that “several” projects are in the works that are unrelated to the character.
Mukae mentioned:
Certainly, as you say, the Kirby series is HAL Laboratory’s main development focus, but we actually have several other projects proceeding along in parallel (not that I can give details on them right now, of course). We also have a few experimental projects in the works with smaller teams, so there certainly isn’t any rule that we must be involved with Kirby projects. Like I discussed in the first question, BoxBoy got its start as an experimental project along those lines.
I was involved in the development of Kirby: Triple Deluxe, but I was also working on the BoxBoy experiment at the same time. Handling both projects simultaneously presented some big challenges, but creating a game with a new character like Qbby made me feel happier than I’ve ever felt before.
Once Kirby: Triple Deluxe development wrapped up, I was able to devote myself fully to BoxBoy. This happened right when it went from an experiment to an official development project, and full-on development began at that point. Some of the Kirby: Triple Deluxe team also joined the BoxBoy project right about then.
As I wrote earlier, our development efforts may be chiefly devoted to Kirby, but there’s no hard-and-fast rule that everything has to be related to Kirby titles. I’m getting the chance to be involved a lot more often with non-Kirby things, such as this BoxBoy project—though, again, I can’t give details quite yet.
Below are some other noteworthy tidbits shared in Kotaku’s interview:
- The BoxBoy project took off after HAL Laboratory invited its staffers to pitch some non-Kirby games, though the game’s director had already been cooking up the concept
- Mukae was inspired by the simpler game designs of NES and GameBoy games
- The developers considered putting Kirby on the starring role of the game but realized it would look weird to have Kirby sprouting boxes
- In general, it sounds like HAL may still be focused on making Kirby games but is also greenlighting more non-Kirby projects
- The main character is called Qbby (“Cue-bee”), not BoxBoy, which you should think of more as his species
- Qbby’s birthdate and origin are “unknown… but that info might wind up being revealed at a later date.”
- World 5-4 of BoxBoy vexed some Japanese gamers, and Mukae has a pretty good idea why
- The developers tried to maintain a gentle learning curve that would enable players to figure out the game’s puzzles on their own, giving them a sense of accomplishment
- If he had to choose between Smash Bros and Mario Kart, Mukae would put his box-shaped hero in the former. Qbby just doesn’t have the arms to steer a Mario Kart.
Be sure to check out Kotaku’s full interview here. There are plenty of neat things to read up on about BoxBoy!
