Epic Yarn has "potential" beyond Kirby

Nintendo has already revealed that Kirby's Epic Yarn began life without Kirby. Now one of the developers has suggested that Epic Yarn is a strong enough concept that it could continue without him into other Nintendo series.

Technically both revelations came from the same instalment of the unmissably formal Iwata Asks, but the first, news that the game was originally about a chap called "Fluff", was from a partial translation of the Japanese transcript. This week's comes courtesy of the full English translation.

In it, HAL Laboratory's Tadashi Ikegami, who began in sound but worked on Epic Yarn as more of a manager, told Nintendo president Satoru Iwata that when he first saw the Epic Yarn visuals he thought, "they were perfect for Kirby".

"I think there's a lot of potential for expanding this style to other series, like making a game called Mario's Epic Yarn," he continued. "That's how well I thought the foundation had been laid, so I was really happy that from among all the characters available it was Kirby who was chosen."

There's no suggestion that Nintendo will use Epic Yarn beyond Kirby, but it's a nice thought. Elsewhere in Iwata Asks, developers from HAL, Nintendo and principal developer Good-Feel discuss how the project began, floundered and then flourished with the introduction of Kirby. There's also a video of Hirokazu Ando playing a melodica.