Prerelease:Kirby: Triple Deluxe/Miiverse Posts

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Kirby: Triple Deluxe.

Kirby: Triple Deluxe had a community dedicated to posting "behind the scenes" tidbits and tips. Many posts have information about the development of the game. Some posts can be very lengthy; as such, only text of interest is documented below.

July 30th 2014 Post

This post explains the challenges of implementing the tilting features while using 3D visuals.

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAAAYUKlfgQGqvw

Today, we’re going to hear from the lead level designer. 

“Hello, everyone! As you may know, Kirby: Triple Deluxe features all-new tilting features on Nintendo 3DS. You have to be very precise when tilting the system, so it can be tricky at times, but we hope it adds a bit of variety to the controls.

We faced some challenges in development, though: usually when you have 3D visuals enabled and tilt the system, the 3D Screen starts to flicker, so we had to come up with a way to avoid this.”

August 22nd 2014 Post

In this post, director Shinya Kumazaki reveals interesting information behind the voice acting.

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAAAYUKljWn8FTw

“One more thing people often forget about audio in Kirby: the voices. Voice is a major component of the final boss battle. Not only does the background music contain a vocal part, but you can also hear the final boss’s voice when she launches attacks.

Some of the voices in the game were recorded by people in the development team - for example, the voices of the People of the Sky were done by the same sound assistant who composed the background tracks "Moonstruck Blossom” and “C-R-O-W-N-E-D”. As in Kirby’s Return to Dream Land and Kirby Super Star Ultra, I did the voice for King Dedede myself!

However, for the more important voices, we decided we should hire a professional voice actor. So the final boss was recorded by a professional, and I think that really helped set the tone in the final battle. But would you believe it - that actress is the same person who does the voice for Kirby! That just shows the kind of range professional actors have.”

Septemeber 8th 2014 Post

The following post has Hiroaki Nakano, the programming director, talking about the development of the Hypernova Copy Ability.

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAADRUqGUo7mr_A

Today, the programming director would like to talk about Hypernova Inhale.

“When we were designing the new Hypernova Inhale ability for this game, we worked hard to make it easy to control and tactically useful, but we also wanted to give you a real feeling of exhilaration when using it!

Those who’ve played the game will know that when you use Hypernova Inhale on a large number of objects, such as the Star Blocks in the attached screenshot, they’ll all be sucked up in one swift, smooth spiral.

That may not seem remarkable, but if you use the normal Inhale ability on a large number of objects, they’ll clatter and move jerkily - there’s nothing smooth about it at all.

It’s that change from the clunky Inhale to the super-smooth Hypernova Inhale that makes Hypernova so much fun to use! It wasn’t easy to program, though, I can tell you.

By the way, Hypernova Inhale also makes a really satisfying sound, so if you’ve been playing with the sound off, I recommend you turn it on and have a listen sometime!

I hope everyone enjoys going Hypernova!”

September 10th 2014 Post

This post talks about the evolution of the title screen menu.

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAADMUKmA5K9AUA

This time, the lead designer will tell us a bit about the menu screens in the game.

“When designing the user interface, we wanted the menus to have the same atmosphere as the rest of the game. So when you’re selecting your save file or the game mode, the top screen is bathed in sunshine and the keychains are suspended on a plant tendril, tying into the theme of plants and Sun Stones.

At first, those screens had a very simple design, but as the game went through development and we got a better idea of the content, we modified the screens to match, adding things like foliage and curvy shapes to give them a more organic feel.

You know the way the keychains tilt and dangle when you physically tilt the system? That wasn’t planned - it was an idea from one of the programmers, who just thought, "Hey, I’ll try making them move!” and that’s how it ended up like that! 

There are lots of other small details, like the way the save file and mode selection screens change when you’ve completed the game, or the particular order in which the keychains are displayed according to series and characters. Plenty of care and attention went into their design, so I hope you like them!”

September 22nd 2014

This posts talks about the design process of the Beetle Copy Ability.

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAADRUqGXcVYyoQ

Today we have a message from the leader of the character design team, who is going to tell us about the Beetle Copy Ability.

“Hi everyone, I was in charge of designing the Beetle Copy Ability, and today I’d like to share a few insights with you about several aspects of the design.

Of course, the main inspiration for this ability was the rhinoceros beetle, but we also wanted to make it more colorful, so we decided to incorporate some elements of traditional Japanese armor into the design. The gold trimmings on the helmet, evocative of samurai armor, aim to complement the jet black color of the rest of it, and I think we managed to give the whole piece a glossiness and elegance which is unmistakably Japanese. The small horn at the back gives the helmet a sense of balance, and was modeled on the secondary horn of the Japanese rhinoceros beetle. Any beetle enthusiasts out there will probably have already noticed that fact!

As you can see, we put a lot of thought into the design, and we’re really hoping that the ability becomes a long-time favorite among Kirby fans!”

October 20th 2014 Post

The following post talks about the designing of the Hypernova puzzles.

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAADRUqGdsgL9sg

Today, the lead designer is going to talk to us about the in-game elements you interact with using Hypernova Inhale.

“Hi everyone. Of course we took a lot of care with the design of all the in-game elements in Kirby: Triple Deluxe, like switches, doors and blocks, but today I’d like to talk to you specifically about the ones you use with Hypernova Inhale. I hope that you’ll find it interesting!

There are various constraints when designing stages and characters, and normally designers have to work within those constraints. However, it was different in the case of Hypernova Inhale. In order to really emphasize Hypernova Inhale and show it off in all its glory, we tried to make it as flashy and over-the-top as possible. 

For example, the Magic Tube in Royal Road - with the design of the tube itself, the animation of Kirby using Hypernova Inhale through the tube, the Waddle Dees sleeping on the platform in the background and all the various effects, the whole thing is about five or six times larger in scale than a regular interactive element.

In the latter half of the development process, some processing problems arose with a few Hypernova Inhale-related interactions which impacted negatively on the gameplay experience. However, thanks to the ingenuity and persistence of the programmers and designers, were able to fix the problems while preserving the flashiness of these set pieces.

I hope that you enjoy the design of all the in-game elements in Kirby: Triple Deluxe, from the smallest switch to the largest Hypernova Inhale puzzle!”

November 10th 2014 Post

This post explains the animation process of Coily Rattler, the boss from Wild World.

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAADRUqGipQUv1A

Today, one of the designers from the character group is going to talk to us about the animation for the Coily Rattler boss on Level 4: Wild World.

“Hi everyone. I was in charge of the character design for Coily Rattler and I’d like to talk to you about how I approached animating that character. 

If you’ve played Kirby: Triple Deluxe, I’m sure you’ll know which character I’m talking about. It’s a snake boss, so we had to make it move just like a snake. Snakes use their coils to move forward, and lift their heads up to threaten or attack. When coming up with an idea for an animation, it’s usually better to move your own body to get a feel for the movements, rather than just try to think of them in your own head. So, for Coily Rattler, I used my arm to try and model the winding coils. Basically, I just spent ages slithering my arm about in different ways to get a feel for how the snake should move and attack!”

November 17th and 19th 2014 Posts

The posts documented below has Hirokazu Ando, one of the sound and music composers, talking about the sound design.

Links: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAABnUYoZsflGhA & https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAADRUqGk0Aok-A

Today, the sound designer is going to talk to us about the making of the sound effects in Kirby: Triple Deluxe.

“Hi everyone. I was the sound designer on Kirby: Triple Deluxe and I’d like to talk to you about how I made the sound effects. 

When people think about the sound in games, the first thing that springs to mind is probably the music, but actually the majority of our work goes into creating and adjusting the sound effects. These days, games have so many characters and features, all of them requiring their own sound effects, that it’s normal for there to be more than 1000 types of sound effect in a game. That means it’s difficult even for us to keep track of all the different kinds of sound effects we make.

Of all the sound effects, the ones that took the most work were the sounds that Kirby makes. Kirby can take any Copy Ability the player chooses to any stage, so a lot of forethought, hard work and tweaking was required to make sure that each sound effect wasn’t lost or difficult to hear when combined with the other sound effects of enemies or features. This was made particularly difficult by the Kirby Fighters multiplayer mode, where up to four Kirbys equipped with any Copy Ability can appear simultaneously!”

Continued from last time, here’s some more info from the sound designer about sound effects in Kirby: Triple Deluxe.

“Compared to producing Kirby’s sound effects, or the sound effects of regular enemies and other in-stage features, producing the sound effects for bosses isn’t as difficult as you might think - although it does still take some work. That’s because the bosses only appear in certain places, and the number of other characters and features that appear together with them is usually low. Because of that, boss sound effects can be created without worrying too much about them having to compete with other sound effects.

Next time you play, I hope you will listen to the sound effects and enjoy them just as much as the music. That’d make me really happy!”

After you complete the game, an area appears below the Dreamstalk called the Copy Ability Testing Room, where you can pick any Copy Ability you like. Why not give it a visit and have a listen to the sound effects for each of the skills one by one?

January 12th 2015 Post

This post sports interesting information about the development of the song "Toy Rhythm".

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAAADVHiNpHZ1SQ

Today, the sound designer is going to talk to us about using different types of sound in music. Let’s hear what he has to say!

“Hi everyone. I’m here to talk to you about some of the sounds we used in the music of Kirby: Triple Deluxe.

Number 22 in the Sound Test mode of Kirby: Triple Deluxe is called Toy Rhythm, and was composed with an old-school NES era sound in mind. Actually, for that sound we weren’t just recreating the feel of an NES, we were actually using a real console and sampling the noises we could produce, then mixing those samples into the track to create the vibe we were going for. You’ve gotta love those old NES sounds!

The console we used is unfortunately broken now, but we’ve still got all those great samples we recorded, so I think we’ll put them to use from time to time in future. By the way, you can hear this particular track on stage 2-2, among others, so why not listen out for it next time you’re playing the game?”

February 23rd 2015 Post

The following post explains the designing process behind Flowery Woods, the boss of Fine Fields.

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAAADVHi2Y0sUjA

This time, we have a message from the lead programmer of Kirby: Triple Deluxe about making the boss, Flowery Woods.

“Hello. Today I’d like to talk about one of the things we really wanted to achieve when creating Flowery Woods. This boss, which appears at the end of level 1, was the first to be made. When we started work on it, one of the programmers said “Let’s make a boss that will surprise even people who fought the last boss from Kirby’s Return to Dreamland!” The boss in question had a great variety of attacks and animations, and was designed to be suitably climactic. How could we possibly top that with Flowery Woods?

The programming team proceeded with a process of trial and error. Whispy Woods, who appeared in previous games in the series, basically never moved from the spot. However, Flowery Woods is more dynamic than that, moving around all over and using its roots in attacks that range across the entire screen. To increase the impact on the Nintendo 3DS screen, which is much smaller than that of a TV, we set up the camera to follow the movement of the character. After a lot of other little tweaks, we finally arrived at the current version of Flowery Woods. To those of you who have Kirby’s Return to Dreamland: try replaying the final boss and then battling Flowery Woods in Kirby: Triple Deluxe straight after! Did we succeeded in our aim of surprising people even if they had played the final boss of Kirby’s Return to Dreamland?”

March 2nd 2015 Post

This post talks about the designing process of the Circus Copy Ability.

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAAADVHi8tPGtWg

This time, the lead designer from the character group is going to talk about designing the Circus Copy Ability.

“Hello! I was responsible for designing the Circus Copy Ability, and I’m going to talk today about the work that went into creating the hat for that ability.

When designing a hat for a Copy Ability, we start by thinking about what sort of motif we want it to have. Some are pretty obvious – The motif for the Beetle ability just had to be a beetle, and for the Leaf ability, a leaf, naturally! But what about the Circus ability? What image comes to mind when you think of a circus? There are trapezes, tightropes, lion tamers, clowns, trampolines…the list goes on and on. But all of those would be really hard to work into a motif. Also, if we went for a clown motif, it’d look like a clown Copy Ability. If we chose a trampoline theme, people would think it was a trampoline Copy Ability. A circus is a circus because it combines all those various things, and more. So, how could we reflect that in a single design? I drew sketch after sketch, but kept coming up blank. Until finally, inspiration hit me: a big tent!

All the shows at a circus take place inside the big tent, and besides, a big tent really is the perfect motif to conjure up the image of a circus. So, I used the big tent as a base, added a clown face, and voilà – a unique new Copy Ability hat was born!”

Kirby: Triple Deluxe Anniversary Post

This post, made on the game's first anniversary, explains how the team came up with the name "Kirby: Triple Deluxe".

Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20171108031008/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAAADVHj2Znm1dQ

“By the way, have you ever wondered how we came up with the game title?

Well, we started with a variety of ideas. One was a title that would reflect the game’s theme of an adventure through floating islands. Another idea was to use the letter "X”, since this is the tenth traditional Kirby platformer.

We also wanted to find a title that reflects the game’s full use of Nintendo 3DS features, such as the 3D function, motion sensors and StreetPass. Something short and catchy that we could use all around the world. That’s how we came up with the title “3DX” - in other words, “Triple Deluxe”!

It felt like a good match for the Hypernova Inhale ability, a truly “deluxe” feature designed to make the basic Inhale ability more satisfying and dynamic than ever. It also fitted well with the fact that King Dedede (3 “De"s) plays an important role in the story for the first time in quite a while!”

May 18th 2015 Post

This post talks about the development of the Story Mode credits.

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAAADVHkFV5JH_A

“Now, a bit of behind the scenes info for you! Because the background of the staff credits has a lot going on, what with the Dreamstalk, the floating islands and so on, rendering it all at once meant processing so much data it made the game to freeze. We tried to handle it in various ways on the design side, but finally realised we had to reduce the data somehow. At that point, programming stepped in and implemented a technique known as ‘culling’, where only on-screen objects are rendered. This technique is used in other parts of the game as well, but in the staff credits it is applied in a more intricate way – for example, the upper portion of a floating island stops being rendered as soon as it goes off screen.

As a result of this, we were able to create the staff credits as envisioned. And the designer in charge of the credits was really, really grateful to the programmers who implemented the culling technique!”

June 29th 2015 Post

This post explains the development of the Miracle Fruit and Hypernova sections of the game.

Link: https://web.archive.org/https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAACAAADVHkOHpeiew

The director’s here today to talk about Miracle Fruit.

“Hi everyone. When Kirby eats the Miracle Fruit that grows on the Dreamstalk, it gives him the unbelievably powerful Hypernova Inhale ability. Interestingly, this item was originally conceived as an invincibility power-up called ‘Hypernova Candy’, but to emphasise its importance and to tie it in with the setting and story, we made it the fruit of the Dreamstalk instead.

In action games, the purpose of the story is to increase the player’s engagement in the game’s various mechanics, and the floating sky-island setting of Kirby: Triple Deluxe evolved from the play mechanic of leaping from foreground to background, with the 3D feature of the Nintendo 3DS evoking a feeling of floating. We thought about the sky, and naturally, that made us think of the sun. Thinking about the sun then brought plants to mind. We put the sky and plants together, and it conjured up the image of a giant plant climbing into the sky, where a floating country inhabited by flowers and plants was in the oppressive clutches of …an insect ruler! This was more or less the chain of thought that led to the pieces of the story slotting into place.”