Japanese game director Masahiro Sakurai (mastermind behind series like Kirby and Super Smash Bros.) used to post daily screenshots for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to his Twitter account. It was a project he kept going for nearly three years until eventually, he ran out of ideas for pictures and announced that he would stop. It was a sad day, but there was light at the end of the tunnel, as he also announced that he was starting a new project, and it wouldn't be long before we got to see what it was. That project turned out to be his new YouTube channel, titled Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games, and man is it great!
The channel is Sakurai talking about the elements of designing games while giving tips and pointers on each of them. He plans on giving those interested in creating videogames a head start while making his dives into the concepts simple and easy to understand for the audience, including people that aren't interested in creating videogames. In short, anyone can watch his videos and learn some neat things.
He talks about some of the other games he's directed, such as the first games in the Kirby series, and his philosophy behind designing them the way that he did. He is also providing design documents and builds used for the development of some of his games, including Smash Bros. His overall goal is to, in his own words, "make games more fun!"
Judging by the traction the channel has garnered, he's doing a great job so far. It's only been a little over a month since the channel was set up, and it's already amassed over two million views and 430,000 subscribers on his English channel; he also has a Japanese channel with similar numbers. The fact that he doesn't plan on profiting from these videos at all (he even explicitly states that this project will probably cost him a lot of money the longer it lasts) is even more of a reason to love and appreciate the content that he's willing to provide.
Some of his pointers can seem basic and self-explanatory at first, but when he starts to dig into them just a bit, it's quick to see how complex they are and how beneficial it'd be to understand them on a deeper level. One of his recent videos titled Draw the Light, Not the Asset focuses on gaming graphics. When drawing an asset for a videogame, he recommends drawing the light that an object reflects rather than the object itself. He then gives an example of several trees copy and pasted across a landscape, transforming it from a dull image into something truly beautiful with just a few lighting edits.
His tips and pointers can be compared to other games as well, for better or for worse. To use the above example, take a look at Pokémon. Their recent games have been heavily criticized for the muddiness of their graphics. This was especially the case for Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield's Wild Area, when fans got a look at the flora during a Treehouse Live presentation leading up to its release back in 2019. If they had drawn the light reflecting off the trees rather than the trees alone, they would've looked much more beautiful and organic. The same can be said about other parts of the Wild Area as well, such as the grass and the bodies of water.
Comparisons to other games can also be taken from one of his first videos, titled Stop at Big Moments! In this video, Sakurai explains how pausing the action at major events in a game, such as a fatal blow landing, can help sell the impact or emotion that it's meant to have.
He also shows off how using slow-motion or screen-shaking effects can further add on to that. You can probably think of many games that have used this expertly. The first example that comes to my mind is the Kingdom Hearts series; I always felt something after losing my life or winning a major boss fight, thanks to the iconic slow-motion effects and sounds that accompanied the final big hit.
He does a great job at digging just deep enough to not only show the complexities of these concepts at a basic level, but to incentivize his viewers that are interested in game design to dig deeper on their own. This is all great stuff for people that either play games or are interested in them, but other videos of his cover things that can be applicable to other things in life besides videogames.
Going back to the video about creating assets, the tip to draw the light an object reflects rather than the asset can be applied to any form of art outside of games. If you're an aspiring artist, you could find a lot of value in his videos that focus on graphics. Using the tip about pausing the action at major moments can benefit you if you're interested in making movies, short films, even books. Beyond that, it's just lovely listening to Sakurai speak. His gentle inflection and way with words feels like an anecdote to a chaotic world.
In all seriousness, Sakurai has a lot of valuable insight to offer as a veteran game developer. He's too modest to say it himself, so I'll say it for him: please like his videos and subscribe to his channel.