Kirby's Dream Land

About This Game

Gameplay

Kirby's Dream Land is a side-scrolling action-platformer. Like many other platformers of the 8-bit and 16-bit era of video games, levels are played on a two-dimensional plane in which the protagonist, Kirby, has six health points and can move left or right as well as jump. Kirby's main method of attack is to inhale enemies and objects into his mouth, after which the player can choose to swallow or spit them out as a star-shaped projectile attack. In addition to running and jumping, Kirby can fly by inflating himself with a mouthful of air and flapping his arms. Flying can be done indefinitely; however, while flying, Kirby's only method of attack is to release the air puff held in his mouth which cancels his flight. The game consists of a total of five levels. Levels are made up of a series of large "rooms" connected by doors that lead Kirby to different areas, rather than the single continuous corridors typical of platformers at the time. Some of these doors lead to hidden areas or alternate pathways through the level. The doors act as checkpoints returning the player to the beginning of a "room" should they die rather than starting the level over.

History

Kirby's Dream Land was developed by Masahiro Sakurai of HAL Laboratory. Much of the programming was done on a Twin Famicom, a Nintendo-licensed console produced by Sharp Corporation that combined a Famicom and a Famicom Disk System in one unit. As the Twin Famicom did not have keyboard support, a trackball was used in tandem with an on-screen keyboard to input values; Sakurai described the process, which he assumed was "the way [game programming] was done" at the time, as similar to "using a lunchbox to make lunch." Kirby initially was a dummy character that the developers used until they could define a more sophisticated image. However the designers grew to like Kirby so much that they decided to keep him instead of using a more advanced character.