Level Atlas

Near miss

Masahiro Sakuraidraft

Director of Kirby and Super Smash Bros. Sakurai's YouTube channel is the largest body of first-person design teaching any working director has published.

Born
1970
Nationality
Japanese
Active
1989 to present
Studios
HAL Laboratory, Sora Ltd.

Why it matters

Sakurai misses the ten because his signature lessons are about polish and feel, hard to cite as an origin, but no designer alive has taught more people what the job is.

Lessons

  1. 01 · systems

    Game essence is risk and return

    Sakurai defines the essence of a game as taking a risk to earn a reward, and reads every mechanic through it: a jump over a gap, a charged attack, a step closer to the invaders. Push and pull between the two is what makes a player test their limits. His channel turned a working director's habits into hundreds of short, sourced lessons.

Known for

  • Kirby's Dream Land1992 · director
  • Super Smash Bros.1999 · director
  • Kid Icarus: Uprising2012 · director
  • Super Smash Bros. Ultimate2018 · director

Levels in the atlas (0)

Derived from level entries, not maintained here.

No level entries credit this designer yet.

Sources