Game Freak
"Yoshi" was the first collaboration between developer Game Freak and publisher Nintendo. Nintendo had previously passed on Game Freak's request for publishing its first title, "Mendel Palace" for the NES. After the smaller company incorporated and began work on its second release, "Smart Ball" for the SNES, Nintendo made Game Freak the offer to develop "Yoshi". It was suggested by Tsunekazu Ishihara, an associate of Game Freak co-founder Satoshi Tajiri, that they develop smaller games like "Yoshi" in order to give the company the financial backing to eventually realize its larger-scale project, the RPG series "Pokémon". "Yoshi" was developed in six months with Tajiri as its director. Ken Sugimori came up with gameplay concept. Ishihara and Nintendo alumnus Shigeru Miyamoto served as producers. Tajiri explained that it was during the development of "Yoshi" that he learned the "wave" design of game difficulty in which the player is presented with an easy stage directly after a challenging one to allow them to savor their accomplishment. Junichi Masuda composed the game's music and sound. Masuda stated that he spent an extensive amount of time programming the movement of the game's menu items to its music. Game Freak had also wanted to add in a realistic-sounding Yoshi voice, but Nintendo disapproved of it.