Kid Kirby was meant to be a “prequel” of the series, a platform game with a younger Kirby (with hair?) that was in development at DMA Design, the makers of Uniracers, Silicon Valley and Lemmings. A little image from this game was already seen in an old magazine, but only recently we found more concepts from the project, thanks to a flickr account from an ex-DMA developer. From an article on Gamasutra we read that Kid Kirby “was to be a showcase for the SNES mouse, but the mouse did not sell that well and the game was not great when played with a joypad, so it never saw the light of day”.
Additional Kid Kirby renders were discovered on a 1995 Nintendo Source Book binder intended for retailers. These pictures were taken by Tomato and Heidi Poe of Earthbound Central.
You can find more about the Kirby series in the WiKirby!
Images:
What do you think about this unseen game? Give your vote!
(16 votes, average: 4.13 out of 5)
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Whoa….this actually seems like a logical thing to do with Kirby…back in the 90’s companies where often making T.V. show characters into kids. They had, Scooby Doo, Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, all into a “kid” style…
Whoa, never heard of this before looks pretty interesting, though the Tintin-Kirby looks kinda weird.
The first and fifth picture looks really good. Don’t know if it’s in-game though.
are there any actual gameplay shots?
Not that i know, but we could try to ask to MikeDaily
ok…..I would be interested to see how the gameplay worked!
Awww! He look’s soo cute. x3
Wait..Kirby’s a baby so..He’s..Huh?
He’s from the past, right? So, this was before he came to the future?
this was before kirby was intended to be a baby
Kirby wasn’t always a a baby/child?
Going by the sprites I would say that it’s likely this concept evolved into Kirby Tilt N’ Tumble.
The main difference being that it seems you would “flick” Kirby around the levels with the mouse. I can imagine this sort of thing being on the DS quite easily.
Mind you this is just going by what little sprites and maps we have here.
Yeah, I really wish they made a DS game like this but this original SNES game was cancelled. Aw, poor kid Kirby.
I’m using DS Game Maker to do a remake of Kid Kirby, which will probably be hard, considering we have such limited info on it.
That would be interesting to see, let us know if you’ll be able to create your version of Kid Kirby! :D
That sounds really neat. Can you link to the DS game maker?
WiKirby sucks-it doesn’t even have any info on Kid Kirby, and there’s not a link on that site going to you. Kirby.wikia.com sent me here, I imagine most of these people were sent here from there too. I hate it when websites ignore possible partnerships.
The one with Kirby in a crib looks like a cheap computer animation, does it not? I think it may also have been cancelled because kirby.wikia.com says that the only familiar sights were Kirby and King Dedede, so it must have been really foreign and… cheap. Even if it was released, it would not have scored a single star (maybe a half) from gaming websites.
I decided to google TinTin and then looked at this picture and while they have a similar hairdo, they are different looking, the hair curls more on the Kid Kirby and less on the Tintin character. But those are my thoughts, seems like it could have been an interesting game.
As for a cheap computer animation, it is amazing how much work it takes to make a game whether it is dated, the code used, etc.
As for saying if it was released, it would not score a star on gaming websites, there are many games I play which those sites would ridicule, bash, and say all kinds of bad stuff about and some of the stuff that would be said would not be true, half-true and half-false, or even less true and more false. So I don’t put my trust in gaming websites, but they can be helpful to see another opinion. I personally just like to play the game and if to me it is interesting, I will play it. Even if it seems I am the only one playing it. But those are my thoughts.
This page is pretty ancient to be commenting on but I came across some information which might be of interest. Background: I’m a Kirby fan but I had never heard of this game until today. I work with someone who is ex-DMA staff and we got talking about this game after they saw me watching a Youtube video of Kirby’s Dream Course.
I’m not sure if this is new info or not – I googled around and couldn’t find anywhere talking about gameplay, so here it is just in case.
He told me you would basically use the mouse as a slingshot to fire Kirby across the level to the end. He described it as “kind of golf-like but a 2D platformer.”
Take this with a pinch of salt as it was a long time ago and he said he only seen it running quite briefly, but interesting nonetheless!
It sounds interesting!
Your source is absolutely right! I worked on Kid Kirby as a tester for a while, and that’s exactly what it was like. You clicked on Kirby and stretched him, then let go to ping him around the level.
You could also slap him while he’s in the air to help him reach higher platforms. You only had 2 or 3 slaps per ping though.
Thanks a lot for your confirmation Mike! It’s always great to read memories from people who worked on cancelled games, these details are mostly lost and forgotten