Kirby's Speedrun Turns Kirby's Dream Land Into a Speedrun Training Tool
Developer Hunter Irving has released Kirby's Speedrun, a hack of Kirby's Dream Land that dropped on September 24, 2026 and simply replaces the score display with a speedrun timer. The clock starts the moment START is pressed at the title screen and stops on the final blow landed on King Dedede.
Irving's goal was simple: practice speedrunning anywhere, directly on real Game Boy hardware, with no setup or third-party software required. The hack doesn't touch anything else in the original game, level design, enemies and difficulty all stay identical to the 1992 release.
One caveat for serious runners: times set with this hack likely won't be eligible for official speedrun.com leaderboards, since the built-in timer isn't recognized as a standardized measurement method by the community. It's meant first and foremost as a personal training tool, handy for practicing outside of properly timed computer-based runs.
The patch is distributed in two forms on the project's page: an in-browser patcher you can use directly, and a classic IPS file for those who prefer their own patching tool. Full source code and instructions are available on the project's GitHub repository, which doubles as both the download page and the installation guide.