Yoshi's Woolly World will be released in the U.S. on Oct. 16. First introduced during E3 2014, Nintendo's Emi Watanabe was on hand during the Nintendo Direct presentation to talk about gameplay, but also the origin story of the upcoming plush Yoshi amiibo.
In Yoshi's Woolly World, Nintendo and the Good-Feel Company transform the famous green dinosaur into yarn and knits his world together with fabric. But when Watanabe was attached to the project, she immediately went on a crafting spree.
"At first I decided to make some yarn Yoshis just for fun," Watanabe said, "because I’m not an artist or a programmer. … I went home and got some yarn and decided to make my very first yarn Yoshi. When I brought it back to the office, the smiles on the faces of my colleagues really struck me."
After seeing Watanabe's trinkets first-hand, it was an easy decision to manufacture the retail Yoshi amiibos out of yarn.
"I fell in love tight the idea, and decided to make more yarn Yoshi prototypes," Watanabe said, sitting in behind row after row of her knit dinosaurs.
The demo showed off more of Yoshi's powers in the game, including the ability to dig into the world and create platforms with his iconic tongue. Also, revealed for the first time, was an adorable yarn Poochy, who barks to alert players of nearby items. Yoshi will also be able to wear skins in the game, and Nintendo showed him dressed as Mario as well as other colorful combinations.
Watanabe also stressed the multiple levels of difficulty built into the game, as well as the ability to play it cooperatively or competitively.
"For us," Watanabe said, what’s special about Yoshi games is the difficulty level is entirely up to the player."
