Kirby's Epic Yarn was Fluff's Yarn first

Gorgeous Wii-exclusive platformer Kirby's Epic Yarn was originally called Fluff's Yarn and didn't feature Kirby at all.

Fluff's Yarn starred a character named Fluff and was set in a world known as World of Yarn, Japanese developer Good Feel told Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata in the latest "Iwata Asks" episode (translated by Andriasang).

Japanese developer Good Feel started from scratch, taking the yarn concept into a world with "warmth". To come up with ideas, the team bought various cloth items and even touched actual yarn.

After presenting the game to Nintendo, though, things quickly changed. Early builds had an action game feel, and Nintendo producers weren't impressed. It was in the summer of 2009 that Nintendo asked Good Feel to turn Fluff's Yarn into Kirby's Epic Yarn. The rest, as they say, is history.

Kirby's Epic Yarn will be released in Europe early next year. Christian Donlan went hands-on for Eurogamer.