Smash Bros. creator opens new YouTube channel

Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Kirby and Smash Bros., opened a new YouTube channel aimed at teaching game development and making games more fun.

Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of the Super Smash Bros. titles as well as Kirby, recently announced that he had created a YouTube channel, focusing around game development tips and strategies.

Sakurai’s channel, “Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games” promises to be an introductory point for up-and-coming game developers or game devs who need a little change in perspective. In his intro video, he states that he wants to bring short and quick glimpses into a variety of topics useful during the game development process.

His first technical video goes into the “hit stop”, which is an intentional feature built into many modern games that show impact when a big event happens. Examples given include landing attacks in Smash Bros. or when the player (or boss) dies in a Kirby game. The game freezes temporarily to emphasise the impact of the attack, before continuing on.

Sakurai stated that while he has approval from Nintendo to use design docs from a few of the games he has developed, including Smash Bros. and Kirby, he will also include footage from a wide variety of games. As it is a personal project of his, Nintendo has no affiliation with the channel.

Sakurai discusses tools and theories to help budding young game developers. Picture: Masahiro Sakurai

As to why he’s creating the channel, Sakurai states that he doesn’t wish to make a profit from it, and instead wants to invest in the game developers of the future by sharing game theory and lessons learned from his previous projects. The channel is a passion project, and he hopes it will be of use to future developers.

Game development is full of weird quirks and hidden mysteries, some of which require years and years to discover. A fan found a hidden secret in the 28-year-old game Super Punch-Out!!, uncovering a 2-player mode that allows someone to play as the enemy boxer.

While the creator of Smash Bros. may be taking a break from the gruelling game development cycle, there’s plenty of Nintendo news to go around. Nintendo of America was hit with a second workplace complaint, just prior to a journalistic investigation turned over several complaints of sexual harassment throughout the past few decades.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF.