Kirby's Dream Land - Development

Development

Kirby's Dream Land was developed by Masahiro Sakurai of HAL Laboratory. Kirby was a dummy character that the developers used until they could define a more sophisticated image. The designers grew to like Kirby so much that they decided to keep him instead of using a more advanced character. He was originally named Popopo (ポポポ?), and Kirby's Dream Land was titled Twinkle Popo (ティンクル・ポポ?). Eventually, he was renamed Kirby and the game was renamed Hoshi no Kirby (literally Kirby of the Stars). During the development of what was then referred to as Twinkle Popopo, Popopo/Kirby's colour had not been decided upon. Masahiro Sakurai wanted him to be pink, while Shigeru Miyamoto felt that he should be yellow. Eventually, Nintendo decided to make him pink. Although pink is still Kirby's main colour, later games have shown Kirby in a wide variety of colours, including yellow. When Hoshi no Kirby was first released in Japan, it featured Kirby in pinkscale. However, Nintendo of America designed the North American box art and advertisements with a white Kirby based on the game's grey-scale visuals.

The visuals are presented in two dimensions using pixelated sprites and environments. They are in black and white, like all Game Boy video games. The grey-scale visuals caused confusion with the North American box art, resulting in Nintendo of America presenting Kirby as being white. The music was composed by Jun Ishikawa. He was the only composer for this game, and has been a regular composer in the Kirby series. His most recent work was on Kirby Super Star Ultra in 2008. Certain songs were also reused in the Super Smash Bros. series as the background music of the Dream Land stage in Super Smash Bros. and the Green Greens stage in Super Smash Bros. Melee.