The first "Kirby of the stars" was developed by Twin Famicom instead of the keyboard

The 25th anniversary of birth on April 27, 2017 is the popular game series "Kirby of the stars". In such popular series first appeared "Kirby of the StarsWhat is "Twin Famicom"It seems that it was developed using a PC keyboard, etc. The fact of the shock that it was made without a keyboard etc. has become clear.

Early Nintendo programmer worked without a keyboard | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/04/the-first-kirby-game-was-programmed-without-a-keyboard/

Appeared as software for Game Boy on April 27, 1992 "Kirby of the StarsFrom 2017, just 25 years have passed. In commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Kirby's birth, "Kirby 25th anniversary commemorative orchestra concert of star" was held on April 16th, among them the game creator who is the creator of the first "Kirby of the stars"Masahiro SakuraiHas appeared and talked about development confidential stories. Mr. Sakurai's developer talk has been posted by GAME Watch and it can be read from the following.

"Kirby's 25th Anniversary Orchestra Concert of the Star" Tokyo Performance - GAME Watch


Among them, it is revealed that the first generation "Kirby of the stars" was created by "Twin Famicom" which was at the Hull Institute at the time. Hull Institute's "Twin Nintecom" has its own trackball, and it seems that it was to read and write data on the floppy disk using this trackball. About game development at that time Mr. Sakurai says "It is like making a box lunch in a lunch box" and reveals that he was making a game as if playing games with game machines.


Other development secrets are talked about, and you can imagine the development scene at the time.

What was told as a further secret story is that in the "Kirby of the stars" the enemy character moves down the edge of the stage or moves down the stairs, but here the "terrain judgment" has not been done. In other words, the movement of the enemy character is that Mr. Sakurai input data of the movement from the beginning to the end to the body one by one in hexadecimal numerical value.

Since "development tool" does not have a keyboard, inputting numerical values ​​is done one by one like handling the screen keyboard using the trackball, and if it thinks from now, it is "absolutely not doing", but " Kirby of the star "It was a newcomer around the age of 20 at the time of development, and it was said that he was making" konkatsu "like that. However, in this case the processing of the data is lighter, so it seems that a considerable smooth movement as a game boy software could be realized and the merit was also great.

It is a talk event where there were plenty of valuable secret stories about the early game development of such Nintendo, but it is becoming a hot topic among overseas media as "Early in Nintendo was developing games without using a keyboard" I will.

Kirby's Development Secrets - Source Gaming
http://sourcegaming.info/2017/04/19/kirbys-development-secrets/


Early Nintendo programmer worked without a keyboard | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/04/the-first-kirby-game-was-programmed-without-a-keyboard/


Ars Technica of overseas media said, "Programmers of a certain age hack applications and hardware from the experiences they have developed under the constraints of extreme hardware and software, and develop such that can not be thought at the moment Even so, I think Mr. Masahiro Sakurai who developed Kirby of the first star, "I do not think there is a talk about Tondemoni Nai that is superior to the coding environment without keyboard", said, "With the use of a keyboard and trackball and screen It is said that development confidential story that input was made using the keyboard is amazing.

Also, Ms. Sakurai's argument against Ars Technica, "To input numerical values ​​using a trackball to handle a screen keyboard one by one," one by one, "These visual programming languages Although it is not novelty, in the early 1990s the physical keyboard would have been more useful for entering values ​​and editing instructions ", in a sense developed with Twin Famicom that had anticipated the era I am surprised by the method.

In the comment column of Ars Technica, "There is only a display with LEDs side by side and a keypad with only 16 keys, andIntel 8086There are also writings of engineers who have been coding in the same difficult development environment, such as "I recall what we were codeing with the embedded board".