Kirby And The Forgotten Land “Ask The Developer” Interview Discusses The Challenges Of Developing A 3D Kirby

Nintendo has published a new “Ask The Developer” interview, this time revolving around the newly released Kirby And The Forgotten Land.

The developer interview reveals a lot of behind-the-scenes tidbits about the game’s development, mostly revolving around the various challenges the developers faced when creating the first proper 3D Kirby game. This includes concerns about Kirby’s “roundness”, enemy difficulty, new gameplay elements, and more.

The full interview with an official English translation can be found here, but you can check out some interesting excerpts below:

You mentioned that this is the first installment in the main series to focus on 3D platforming. What inspired you to take Kirby in this new direction?

Kumazaki (HAL Laboratory): Looking back on the history of the Kirby series, there was a period of time where certain game concepts simply refused to come together. As a result, we weren’t able to release a mainline Kirby game on a home console for a little over a decade. We kept hitting walls we couldn’t climb over. From that point on, our game prototypes shifted to a “trial-and-error” approach. We played with unconventional gameplay angles through comparatively smaller games in the series (3) as a way to further explore the concept of a Kirby-based 3D platformer. We still had plenty of unique challenges to overcome, though. Some in HAL Laboratory even felt that only 2D games should count as “real” Kirby games, so to speak, so we weren’t able to reach a point where we could deliver a complete 3D-platforming Kirby title.

Kamiyama HAL Laboratory): Personally, I thought that a Kirby game where you could freely explore a 3D space would be a lot of fun. However, when it came to directing the game, realistically there were a lot of issues that needed to be solved. For example, we found that even the basic actions of inhaling, spitting out, or jumping didn’t work as expected when simply put into 3D as is… So, we looked at Kirby’s behavior in past games and spent a lot of time thinking about what to do to make a proper mainline Kirby game that can be enjoyed in 3D.

I see! You mentioned that it wasn’t easy to transition Kirby’s standard gameplay into 3D platforming. Could you give a clearer picture of the challenges you faced?

Kamiyama: Of course. The first challenge—and we knew this from the start—was that Kirby’s character design was not a perfect fit for full 3D gameplay. Kirby’s silhouette is perfectly round. When you’re controlling him from behind, it can be hard to tell which direction he’s facing at a glance

…

You mentioned that, as part of this transition to 3D action, you had to increase the density of elements in each stage, which meant the enemy difficulty needed to be adjusted to match. Did you also have to make adjustments to the way Kirby attacks?

Ninomiya (Nintendo): We made adjustments so that the stresses players might feel as they attack enemies would be reduced.

Kamiyama: I know we mentioned that it can be hard to tell which way Kirby is facing in 3D, but for Kirby’s Blowout Blast™(5), a small-scale 3D action game where players could inhale enemies and spit them back out, there was an arrow to show where you were attacking.

In this Kirby game, however, always pointing forward with an arrow made it feel like you were controlling the arrow, not Kirby. We had to think of a way to easily control and aim Kirby without the arrow’s help. Now, if it looks like an attack “should” hit on-screen, we made sure it does connect—even if it is going to narrowly miss.

The game accounts for the player’s perspective by tracking the positions of Kirby and the camera. It then maps out a range in which attacks may appear to land. If an attack is within that range, the attack will hit. By doing so, even people who are not so good at 3D action games can attack enemies without any stress. You would move around a 3D space while inhaling and spitting out enemies to get a high score.

So you adjusted it to make sure that the attacks players think are a “hit” will become a “hit” to make players feel satisfied?

Kamiyama: Talking about the adjustments, the actions associated with the Copy Ability that Kirby uses also needed to be adjusted so it would be easier for players to enjoy in 3D. Even long-established Copy Abilities like Sword or Fire were redesigned from scratch to help players feel satisfied.

Ninomiya: In 3D games, it’s often hard to precisely grasp the distance in the anterior direction, and therefore it’s hard to correctly hit an object. However, for this Kirby game, I believe players can comfortably hit the objects because of the measures we’ve taken.

…

We’ve discussed the adjustments you made to better accommodate 3D gameplay, but the transition also brought with it new gameplay elements that could only be done in 3D, right

Ninomiya: There’s a new ability in this game called Mouthful Mode. Kirby can now inhale large objects like cars or traffic cones, then change form and take on the characteristics of whichever thing he swallowed.

Kumazaki: Near the beginning of development, we spent a lot of time discussing the kinds of movement and visuals we could add that might feel unique to Kirby—ones that you wouldn’t find in other 3D platformers. Then we thought about Kirby’s unique characteristics and realized that, to make a truly great 3D platformer, we should embrace his innate humor. He’s this funny little puffball, always changing shape, squashing and stretching as he gobbles up everything around him.

Ninomiya: Nintendo was also thinking about Kirby’s moves at the same time, and they suggested having an ability where he can inhale objects that he can’t normally inhale. Same idea, same time. Pure coincidence. When Kirby uses his new Mouthful Mode, he doesn’t gain a Copy Ability to match what he swallowed like usual. He’s unable to swallow the object in his mouth, so he takes its shape instead, then performs moves related to the object. It seemed like a quirky idea with equally quirky visuals. In other words, it felt like a good fit for Kirby.

Endo (HAL Laboratory): From the perspective of creating new gameplay experiences, Mouthful Mode had a kind of intuitive visual appeal for our players. There were all kinds of new possibilities, from swallowing a large metal ring so that Kirby can puff out gusts of wind to propel his boat, to swallowing a large pipe and rolling forward to defeat an entire line of enemies.

Ninomiya: It was also appealing to us in terms of visual design. Because it would be in 3D, we imagined seeing Kirby in these bizarre shapes from all kinds of angles.

…

 

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.