If you're not watching Sakurai's YouTube channel, you're missing out. We need more top tier creative people producing behind the scenes stuff like this. It's better than most game development books you can buy, and it's free.
My only problem with the videos—which is 100% not Sakurai's fault—is I find it very difficult to read the english subtitles while also focusing on the visuals. I have no trouble following subtitled movies, but for some reason they're problematic in this format.
The main programmer of Kirby's Dreamland was Satoru Iwata (credited under the pseudonym Sunday Rain in the game) the later president and CEO of Nintendo.
Apparently Hiroshi Yamauchi the original Nintendo CEO saw promise in Iwata and insisted he'd be made president of HAL (and later his successor at Nintendo).
I've always heard "scarcity breeds innovation" but nothing embodies it like making Z80 games. Everything before gameboy is far before my time, but I have dipped into gameboy rom hacks briefly and it is a real trip. The tiling techniques talked about here feel so elegant even though I'm sure they felt like necessary hacks at the time.
We are probably either at or approaching the point at which the general population would be more familiar with the videogame character than the vacuum cleaner.
