In order to celebrate King K. Rool’s newcomer status in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, developer Gregg Mayles and artist Steve Mayles, who were part of the team who worked on the original Donkey Kong Country, revealed a few early designs and concepts for the portly crocodile king on Twitter.
“Never expected this tweet about #KingKRool in #SmashBros to be so popular. As a moderately interesting bonus follow up, an early naming sheet shows K. Rool was going to be ‘Kommander’ and #DKC was going to be called ‘Monkey Mayhem’.”
“Unearthed some very early #DKC Kremling concepts, which showed the origins of a far more serious and tough-looking #KRool as ‘Krudd’. Also the military theme that was dumped.”
“Continuing the resurgence of interest in #KingKRool now that the portly croc is in #SmashBrosUltimate, here’s the design for his end of game showdown in #DKC, including his ‘standard’ crown boomerang attack. A one page design is all he had!”
“Found some more #KingKRool original designs. This time it’s his initial idea for #DKC2, alongside his crew of pirated-up Kremlings. Amusing to see that the TNT carrying ‘Kaboom’ is basically the gunpowder skeleton from #SeaofThieves. Same idea, 23 years apart!”
Gregg Mayles’ brother Steve Mayles also chipped in with some trivia on the development of Donkey Kong Country:
24 years ago, K.Rool was having a tricky debut. ” He’s too big! We’ve run out of memory! Remove some frames!” wailed DKC programmer @Chris_Suth . Well he’s back to stay now! #SuperSmashBrosUltimate pic.twitter.com/TlDXRrRlac
— Steve Mayles (@WinkySteve) August 10, 2018
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is coming to Nintendo Switch on December 7, 2018. Donkey Kong Country is available on Nintendo SNES.
