Snipperclips originally started out as an indie Adobe Flash game called "Friendshapes" as part of a "game jam," which is a competition to create a video game in less than eight hours. After looking at it, the developers thought Snipperclips would be a much better game if Nintendo published it.

Nintendo approved it, and the developers almost released it for the Wii U, but decided to make it one of the many launch titles for the Nintendo Switch once the console started gaining grounds.