Kirby’s Epic Yarn Iwata Asks details (wasn’t originally a Kirby game)
– Kirby’s Epic Yarn was made in Good Feel’s Tokyo office, though most of their games are developed in Kobe
– About 70 employees in the company
– Wasn’t original a Kirby game
– Good Feel basically started out with nothing, started from zero as they wanted to create something new
– Called Keito no Kirby in Japan, was originally going to be called Keito no Fluff (Fluff’s Yarn)
– Was going to star a character named Fluff
– Would be set in a world called the “World of Yarn”
– Producer Etsunobu Ebisu (Good Feel) said the World of Yarn idea came from the director of Wario Land Shake, Madoka Yamauchi
– Yamauchi was head of Good Feel’s planning department
– Yamauchi showed Ebisu the idea for the World of Yarn, and they made the decision to create a game design document making use of the yarn concept as well as a world with “warmth”
– Planning director Atsushi Kouno (Good Feel) and Mr. Shinsaku (head of Good Feel’s design department) made the visuals for the design document
– Bought various cloth items and touched yarn to come up with ideas
– After the design document was created, Good Feel gave a presentation to Nintendo
– Producer Nobukatsu Matsumiya (Nintendo) was surprised by the first page of the design document, never saw such a game before
– He felt the visuals had impact and he was impressed with the different types of play that could be made from using yarn
– Prototype was being made for three months
– Problems with the prototype: Contained elements of an action game such as enemies and gimmicks, and the look of the was nice, but something felt wrong
– Emi Watanabe (Nintendo) didn’t feel that the first couple of stages were much fun
– Around Summer 2009, Nintendo asked if Good Feel could make a Kirby game
– Ebisu felt that the Fluff character looked somewhat like Kirby, but wasn’t sure if Kirby should be in the game because the people who created the original character would probably like to have that character in the final game
– Once testing began with Kirby in the game, Ebisu was surprised with how persuasive seeing him in there was
– Ebisu feels that because Kirby already exists, the yarn version of the character offered a greater feeling of existing
