This week on Masahiro Sakurai’s YouTube channel where he discusses the development of video games, the Smash Bros. and Kirby director talked about three subjects:
- The Potential of One Button [Planning & Game Design] – Sakurai discusses all the potential gameplay you can get out of using just one button, not even a joystick/directional pad. He comes up with four different potentialities: tapping as fast as possible, timing button presses, reacting to on screen events with a quick press, and alternating holding down the button and not.
- Prep Your Proposals Hot & Fresh [Work Ethic] – Sakurai teaches how to streamline your work proposals so they’re not filled with extraneous information, noting that you should focus on the core of your ideas rather than fleshing out every possible detail. He’s careful to qualify that this doesn’t mean to make proposals short, but rather that all of the information you present is relevant. He also notes that if your proposal fails, it’s not necessarily because the producers have no taste – you may just not be communicating your vision clearly.
- Sora Ltd. [Grab Bag] – The topic here is Sakurai’s game development company… which isn’t quite a game development company. Sora Ltd. is actually a shell company essentially for Sakurai alone, one that he uses to play as a “wandering director” at other developers with full teams. Sakurai wonders what it would be like to have enough employees for Sora to become a “real” developer, but stresses that they’re not looking for new hires now or anytime soon.
That’s all for last week’s Sakurai videos. We’ll be rounding them up every Monday, so make sure to check back then for more!
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Written by Amelia Fruzzetti
A writer and Nintendo fan based in Seattle, Washington. When not working for NinWire, she can be found eating pasta, writing stories, and wondering about when Mother 3 is finally going to get an official localization.
