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Paper Abstract and Keywords
Presentation 2026-03-04 15:30
Kirby's Dream Land is NP-complete
Ryuya Tamayama, Tomoyuki Yamakami (Univ. of Fukui) COMP2025-27
Abstract (in Japanese) (See Japanese page) 
(in English) Many well-known video games, such as Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokémon, have been proven to be computationally hard to solve with respect to achieving their game objectives.
In this paper, we focus on the Kirby series developed and published by Nintendo. Previous work has shown that Kirby Super Star, released in 1996, is PSPACE-complete. However, the first title in the series, Kirby's Dream Land, developed by HAL Laboratory and released for the Game Boy in 1992, does not include the copy ability system that allows Kirby to acquire various abilities.
We prove that Kirby's Dream Land is NP-complete. The hardness proof proceeds by constructing various gadgets that control the essential components of a 3CNF Boolean formula, which is an instance of the NP-complete problem 3SAT.
Keyword (in Japanese) (See Japanese page) 
(in English) Nintendo / Kirby's Dream Land / NP-complete / PSPACE / / / /  
Reference Info. IEICE Tech. Rep., vol. 125, no. 390, COMP2025-27, pp. 38-44, March 2026.
Paper # COMP2025-27 
Date of Issue 2026-02-25 (COMP) 
ISSN Online edition: ISSN 2432-6380
Copyright
and
reproduction		 All rights are reserved and no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Notwithstanding, instructors are permitted to photocopy isolated articles for noncommercial classroom use without fee. (License No.: 10GA0019/12GB0052/13GB0056/17GB0034/18GB0034)
Download PDF COMP2025-27

Conference Information
Committee COMP  
Conference Date 2026-03-04 - 2026-03-04 
Place (in Japanese) (See Japanese page) 
Place (in English) Chuo University Korakuen Campus Building 6 4F Room 6402 
Topics (in Japanese) (See Japanese page) 
Topics (in English) Theoretical Computer Science, General 
Paper Information
Registration To COMP 
Conference Code 2026-03-COMP 
Language Japanese 
Title (in Japanese) (See Japanese page) 
Sub Title (in Japanese) (See Japanese page) 
Title (in English) Kirby's Dream Land is NP-complete 
Sub Title (in English)  
Keyword(1) Nintendo  
Keyword(2) Kirby's Dream Land  
Keyword(3) NP-complete  
Keyword(4) PSPACE  
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1st Author's Name Ryuya Tamayama  
1st Author's Affiliation University of Fukui (Univ. of Fukui)
2nd Author's Name Tomoyuki Yamakami  
2nd Author's Affiliation University of Fukui Faculty of EngineeringDivision of Engineering Information (Univ. of Fukui)
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Speaker Author-1 
Date Time 2026-03-04 15:30:00 
Presentation Time 20 minutes 
Registration for COMP 
Paper # COMP2025-27 
Volume (vol) vol.125 
Number (no) no.390 
Page pp.38-44 
#Pages 7 
Date of Issue 2026-02-25 (COMP) 

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