Smash Bros director Masahiro Sakurai has started a game-design YouTube channel

"I want to try and help make games around the world a little more fun"

Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of Kirby and series director for Super Smash Bros., has revealed a new YouTube channel dedicated to lessons in game design.

The channel, Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, is aimed at providing newcomers to game development insight into the fundamentals of crafting something that is fun to play. Sakurai notes that he’s often asked to give lectures on game design, but that these talks don't have as much reach as he’d like.

In the introductory video explaining the channel, Sakurai states that he’d like the videos “to be accessible to those with no development experience” and will include breakdowns of common concepts and terms within game design. 

Each video will be produced in both Japanese and English forms, though Sakurai even jokingly notes that YouTube’s duplication algorithms may end up taking down some of these if the content is extremely similar. 

In preparation for the channel Sakurai was granted permission to show design documents and development builds from his time working on Super Smash Bros. Series fans may want to take note of future videos to get an inside look at development. Nintendo isn’t, however, directly involved in the videos or series.

For now, two further videos have already been posted to the channel. One covers Sakurai’s various creative works in the video game industry, starting with Kirby’s Dreamland in 1992 and running all the way up until 2018’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

The second video covers the concept of Hit Stop, or the artificial pause added to a game when a character is hit by something. Sakurai details how the effect adds weight to impacts, and shows how it can change the impact of events in a variety of genres.

“I want to try and help make games around the world a little more fun,” says Sakurai. “If you make games or are aspiring to do so, you might find a little something new here. And if you play games, learning more about the mechanics behind them might deepen your enjoyment even more.”

Associate Editor

Henry Stenhouse serves an eternal punishment as the Associate Editor of AllGamers. He spent his younger life studying the laws of physics, even going so far as to complete a PhD in the subject before video games stole his soul. Confess your love of Super Smash Bros. via email at henry@moonrock.biz, or catch him on Twitter.

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