The basic idea of the game is to create rectangles which have to be two-by-three blocks or larger to clear them from the grid.

[4] It was eventually presented by Rare at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2001 as Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers, one of four titles for Nintendo's GBA handheld game console.

[5][6] Nintendo aimed to release Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers on 7 December 2001,[7] but was likely postponed ahead of time due to the forthcoming acquisition from Microsoft in 2002.

[4][9] On August 11, 2003, Microsoft announced their partnership with publisher THQ for distributing Rare's GBA titles, including the newly revealed It's Mr.

Pants was originally conceived by Rare veterans Tim Stamper and Gregg Mayles.

The team initially considered using characters from the Banjo-Kazooie or Sabreman franchises before settling on Rare's online mascot Mr.

Pants was originally illustrated by artist Leigh Loveday, but the design was implemented into the game by Ryan Stevenson.

Pants was accomplished by having the right-handed artists draw with their left hands to intentionally make the illustrations appear "genuinely bad".

[4] The Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers incarnation of the game featured the ability to switch between top-down 2D graphics and a 3D isometric layout.