Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2023 took place this week, and one of the biggest takeaways is that Kirby is in human form and “ok to stretch.”
Let’s explain: During GDC, Kirby’s creator HAL Laboratory gave a presentation at the five-day event where a corporate executive, Tatsuya Kamiyama, shared an idea on how to bring the adorable pink puffball from 2D to 3D world.
During the presentation, Kamiyama shared a few slides featuring various sketches of Kirby that helped illustrate the developer’s points. However, for the rest of us outside of this showroom, the slides are fun out of context. Some of them have been shared online, thanks to some of the participants, so we’ve rounded up the best ones below.
Thanks to IGN’s Rebekah Valentine (opens in a new tab) who attended GDC this year, we now know that HAL Laboratory had something called “The Floating Dilemma” converting Kirby’s adventures from 2D games to 3D. Valentine thankfully gave this dilemma more context in a story, where it was revealed that the studio’s biggest problem with Kirby’s 3D transition resulted from him being round, among other things.
Another participant, Wired’s Megan Farokhmanesh, shared images from another of Kamiyama’s slides, this time detailing what Kirby can do. This slide features Kirby in 2D in the middle of the screen with the caption “Kirby is…” above. Surrounding him are three other Kirbys, all in different formations. For example: “It’s good to twist”, “It’s good to be flat”, and “It’s good to stretch”, except that the expression on Kirby’s face tells us that this is really not good to stretch.
Finally, thanks to someone at Resetera (opens in a new tab), we got our first official look at human Kirby. You read that right, HAL Laboratory has designed a human version of Kirby, probably just for use in the presentation. The Kirby in question was designed as a Superman-like figure with pink hair and a pink and blue super suit decorated with Kirby’s famous star. It doesn’t end there either, as HAL Laboratory also gave Magolor his own human forms.
Are you in the mood to play one of the pink blob adventures now? Take a look at our best kirby games list.