Sakurai on Creating Games: Planning & Design (30)

Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. series, shares a wealth of game-development know-how on his YouTube channel “Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games”. This article summarizes and restructures the content of that channel by topic.

That said, a summary is only an entry point. So much of the value — Sakurai’s own words, his real-world examples, his pacing, and the footage itself — can only be gotten from the videos. So please don’t stop at reading the article; I strongly encourage you to also watch the original videos embedded under each topic.

This category covers practical ways of thinking about designing a game, from the basics of frames to how sequels should be. Here we bring together the key points of all 4 videos in the “Planning & Game Design” category (30 individual topics), structured in 4 parts following the 4 source videos. Each part opens with its explanatory video, so please watch along.

Part 1: Frame basics and designing fun (#01–#09)

This category gathers what you’ll need when thinking up a game’s ideas and mechanisms. From the foundational knowledge of frames, to building the opening, to how to create originality, it’s lined with practical content.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTNA84vJNEc

1. A frame is a count of cels

In the game industry, a frame usually means the unit of “how many times the screen is redrawn.” Like the cels of film in a projector. A standard TV redraws 60 times per second — that is, 60 frames per second. This is treated as the unit of time in a game.

Distance = time × speed. When something moves, the unit of time greatly affects distance calculation, so this frame rate is extremely important. There’s a considerable difference in look and control smoothness between 60 frames and 30 frames. Ideally you’d make a game at 60 frames, but there are cases where 30 frames is the standard.

Sakurai also tells an old story from the Famicom–Nintendo 64 days. TV standards back then included NTSC (Japan and North America, structured at about 30 frames per second, but games could be made at 60 frames via scanline handling) and PAL (Europe and Australia, 25 frames per second). Because the screen-interrupt count was used directly as the unit of time, porting to PAL dropped the speed to 5/6, making the motion a little slower. From the 64 onward, with polygon processing, “slow only the drawing, keep the processing” became easier, and the discomfort faded.

2. Just let them play, no matter what

It’s an arcade-style mindset, but a game must make its fun clear within the first three minutes of play. Make people wait longer and they give up.

Sakurai says that with trailers lined up in online shops, many open with a story demo and won’t show the game screen for a while, so he’s developed a habit of skipping the start. If you can’t tell what kind of game it is, it’s useless. The main game, too, loses out if it opens with a long prologue.

His recommendation is a flow that just gets you playing first, no matter what. If it’s a story where an incident occurs and you set off, bring a later scene to the opening in chronological terms, or stage it so someone before the protagonist fights — get into the controls right away. Showing footage can be done in other media too, so first let players taste the part only games can offer. The tutorial, too, is best made so it feels like playing the main game rather than obviously practicing.

3. A reward dangled before your eyes

Rewards connect to the motivation to progress, but it’s even better if the reward can be perceived mid-game.

Sakurai cites the 1987 PC game Ys (PC Engine version). The main screen is a bit small, but below it you can see your current EXP and the value until the next level-up. The number grows with each enemy defeated, so you can’t help pushing for one more level. Likewise, Nihon Falcom’s Faxanadu has few, pricey shop items, but saving up small change to buy gear gives a sharp power-up.

Modern games are flush with money and equipment, so staging this kind of fun may be hard. But placing your sense of purpose within arm’s reach and directly conveying the joy of achievement — this seems like a big reference, and he reflects that he wishes he’d incorporated it more in his own games.

4. How to make a living making games

The question “how can I get into the game industry?” has reportedly been very common, then and now. The shortest and almost only way Sakurai teaches to land a game job is, bluntly, to try making a game yourself.

Today there are many means — Unity, Unreal Engine, various programming languages, schools. Even aspiring planners will absolutely need programmatic thinking. At first it’s fine to imitate some game. Just being able to make it is impressive. Once you’ve made one to your satisfaction, have friends play it, give it away free, or sell it, and improve based on the reactions.

If you get a response, it’s good to send it along with an application to a game company. It’s fine if you stray a bit from the requirements — companies want people who can make good games so badly they could die for it. But the game you send should add some shining originality somewhere. There’s also a path of continuing to create solo or in a small team without joining a company. Making a game yourself, even at small scale, is essential to making a living from games.

5. The window to the world is very narrow

Racing games pursue near-photoreal visuals, but no matter how far you push the graphics, it won’t become the real sensation of driving. There are various reasons, but a particularly big one is that the monitor is small. Sitting and facing it, your field of view is only about 30 degrees of angle. Far short of the wide view of real driving.

So it matters to be aware of which parts of the screen you’re using, and how much, to play. The reason a cockpit view — which should be the most realistic in a racing game — is rarely chosen is that the range you can actually play in shrinks sharply against the screen. VR can cause sickness and blur distant objects, but vehicle games, where travel direction and gaze are independent, pair superbly with VR, so they’re worth trying once. Kid Icarus: Uprising made enemies several times the player’s size, making the most of the narrow screen.

6. What you can do with one button

You can make a game using only one button. In fact, Kirby’s Adventure and Kirby Super Star implemented one-button minigames. Broadly, one-button games fall into four types.

• Rapid-fire: compete on how fast you mash the button. But individual differences are large and it’s tiring, so it’s hard to be trendy now
• Timing: press to match a set timing (crane games, “Megaton Punch,” etc.)
• Quick-draw: press as fast as possible on a signal (“Quick Draw” Kirby, etc.). Pure reflex play
• Toggle: switch between pressed and released states (in “Egg Catcher,” press for an egg, release for a bomb)

Combined with other controls, what you can do widens further. Either way, what matters is play feel matching control feel. It’s not about cramming in functions — you should think hard about the feel. Precisely because it’s simple, the presentation works.

7. Break down, analyze, rebuild

When you want to bring originality to a work, merely imitating something fun won’t get you there. What Sakurai recommends is breaking down the elements of fun and rebuilding them in a unique configuration.

As an example, making a racing game “have a tune to it.” First, break it down and assume “drifting is fun.” Next, analyze. Why is drifting fun? Because there’s risk and reward there too (a dangerous state where you mustn’t hit the wall, which, cleared well by braking, advantageously carries you forward). Then, rebuild. Rather than speeding up the whole drift, it seems better to accelerate at the “end” of clearing a curve. Start charging with the brake, drift, and release it all at once at the end of the curve to accelerate — this was the process when conceiving Kirby Air Ride. It wasn’t simply a flash of inspiration; it was designed through the stages of break down, analyze, rebuild.

8. Good errands, bad errands

A game’s “errand” — being sent here and there for scenario convenience. Even the same errand has better presentations. Sakurai lists five conditions for a good errand.

Especially ④ is easy to grasp by thinking of travel. The return trip is far less fun than the way there. Just let players enjoy the fun parts. As for ⑤, even moving the same distance, “go buy some meat” is dull, but “children keep going missing, and one girl is nowhere to be seen; go check the house where a noise came from” makes the same movement feel completely different by presentation.

9. Learn to measure frames

The frame, a game’s unit. Not being able to gauge its length by feel causes trouble in various ways. You need to sense how long 30 frames is. After all, every action is based on frames.

That said, there’s no stopwatch that measures in frames. So the knack Sakurai teaches is measuring by feel. Rather than counting “1, 2, 3,” put a beat in between and count “1-and, 2-and, 3-and,” which comes to roughly 30 frames. Half of that is 15 frames.

Fifteen frames is, in Smash terms, about from a smash attack’s input to the attack coming out; in Tekken, about until a normal kick comes out. Twenty frames is a bit over 15… and so on, gauging by how far you overshoot the reference point. For a director to convey the motion in their head to staff, you have to be able to measure frames yourself to some degree. The data entered into the computer can be wrong, too, so training a human sense of it is effective.

Part 2: Praise the player, scenario quirks, motion sickness (#10–#18)

Following the design basics of the first half, this part centers on finer talk: staging that makes the player’s experience feel good, and designing scenarios and rewards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1xnNI6KHDg

10. A natural tutorial

A tutorial is a control guide for the stage when you’re not yet used to the controls. It’s indispensable in today’s games, and its know-how has come together. The approach of fighting inorganic things on an obviously “practice ground” stage is becoming a minority.

As an introduction too, it’s better if possible to throw players straight into the real thing and let them learn while fighting — both in the sense of getting them playing fast and of building excitement. For example, the first stage of Donkey Kong Country 3 shows arrangement with background bananas in button shapes, but this may be a little hard to notice.

When you do put out a proper control guide, having to support key config too is quite a pain. If you turn buttons into icons, you need to cover all of them. In the end anything’s fine as long as the controls become clear, but if you’re going to do it, you’d want to compose it pleasantly, leaning in-game, so it doesn’t feel like a chore.

11. Praise them!

Since a game is play, it’s important to praise players for their good deeds. Something paying off, or clearing, are praising elements too, but ending there is thin. Rewards are handed out as a “given”; they aren’t set from the viewpoint of praise.

Sakurai’s own games include a lot of praising staging. In Smash, a cheer quietly rises when you launch an opponent far, or grab the ledge at the last second. Kirby Air Ride even plays handclaps in time with the clear-dance music.

In the Musou (Warriors) series, allied officers praise you by your kill count; in Ridge Racer, whether you drive cleanly or get banged up, a bonus is attached no matter what. In Smash Bros. Ultimate, confetti was mixed into the explosion when you make a mistake. As a “mistake,” it’s a strange expression, but it’s an effect that gaily praises the one who got the KO. Rather than expressing an ordinary event as-is, it’s good to think of staging that aligns with the player’s feelings, praising them to death both directly and indirectly.

12. Eliminate no-reaction

A game controller has many buttons. In menus and other UI, it’s good to assign the confirm key to several buttons. Even in a simple action game, duplicating it on some button is valid.

A game is a two-way exchange of information: sending info from the hands to the computer, receiving its response with the eyes and ears. Rather than creating a state where operating does nothing, it’s better to return some kind of reaction. It’s sad when the player took an action but the game gives no reaction.

Especially during a cutscene, it’s good to present a choice like skip when the button is pressed. When players press a button, they must be wanting something. You also want to avoid a reaction so faint you can’t tell whether you pressed it. No-reaction isn’t always a no, but you’d want to deepen the awareness that a game returns a reaction to an action.

13. Game scenarios are unique

A game’s scenario greatly differs from scenario-making in ordinary media. Conversely, turning that difference to your advantage enables novel presentation. Sakurai lists four points that differ from other media.

These are scenario problems, but there’s also a hand of deliberately ignoring the theory and implementing them, making a memorable scenario including unpleasant feelings. And what Sakurai emphasizes is starting not with story but with the game first. Don’t explain the prologue at length; dive quickly into the game, and the detailed scenario after that. In Kid Icarus: Uprising, you go through a door right as the stage starts, receiving the mission briefing while playing. Incidentally, the new Kid Icarus scenario was written by Sakurai himself.

14. The fun of rooting

Sakurai reportedly doesn’t watch much sports. The reason is clear: he isn’t partial to either team. Conversely, the secret to enjoying spectating is first leaning toward one side. When two sides fight and one wins, it’s more exciting if the side you should root for is clear from the start.

Smash has a spectator mode that plays back someone’s match replay, and you can bet points on whom you think will win. Since they’re strangers, predictions don’t hit, and the points themselves have no big meaning. It’s woven in as a small motivation to side with something. A work with elements of rooting is better off setting up an environment where you can take a side.

Incidentally, Smash’s rooting spec was reportedly created only after careful, repeated tuning to avoid catching on gambling-like expression in each country’s regulations. A gacha-like mechanism, too, he says, should give a better impression than plain randomness if you let players choose from two or three, or differentiate by appearance.

15. When 3D games make you sick

Playing 3D games can make you violently sick. This varies greatly by person; Sakurai is relatively resistant. Game sickness occurs by the same principle as motion sickness, but with the reverse action.

The principle is the gap between info from the eyes and from the inner ear. In motion sickness, the driver can match their movement to curves and ups and downs, so they’re less prone, while a passenger looking at a wall or phone gets sick. In a game, by contrast, you aren’t actually accelerating, so there’s no info from the inner ear, yet on-screen there’s violently inertial behavior. That contradiction makes people sick.

As countermeasures: widen the field of view a little, be aware that outside the screen is fixed, try anti-sickness medicine, avoid long play. On the game-spec side, toning down the staging is effective. Turn off the vertical sway from FPS footsteps, fix the vehicle frame to the screen, place fixed info in the center, and so on. A camera that doesn’t make you sick is also a camera without staging, so it’s good to provide several anti-sickness options.

16. Organize with hierarchical outlines

What Sakurai explains as a feature even Microsoft Word has, yet staff not uncommonly say “I didn’t know that,” is the outline. This is a mechanism for managing text hierarchically, which Sakurai uses so much he says “nothing starts without it.”

In short, it lets you manage a folder-like hierarchy as text. For example, when compiling the spec of a fighter’s special moves, you write a special-move list within the fighter’s listing and write the spec there. Fold the spec away and it’s simple, and you can freely swap positions or replace hierarchies.

Sakurai began using hierarchical outlines around 1993 when Macs were deployed. It’s an indispensable mechanism for organizing all sorts of things and compiling ideas. However, this is for organizing your own ideas; showing it to others needs a clean copy. This program, too, he says, was first planned with category-splitting via hierarchical outline. Just try touching it first.

17. Anticipate the payoff

In-game rewards are indispensable, but if you have nothing to give, you can do nothing. So at the planning stage you need to think hard about what can be made into rewards. The most effective is to purely strengthen the player character. Equipment for money, levels for EXP, moves for skill points, synthesis from materials… such acts heighten the desire to progress.

But there are projects that can do this and projects that can’t. Smash, for one, is hard. If a versus game grants character strengthening via progression, it risks becoming “you finally start once you’ve raised every character.” How Smash prepared rewards within such constraints is introduced.

Unlocking fighters, trophies (Smash Melee–4), stickers (Brawl), Spirits (Ultimate), music and currency, and the “Challenges” board where panels open on meeting conditions. Rewards, in the sense of giving the game purpose, make motivation and reward two sides of the same coin. Overdoing it loses players, so the balance is hard, but a game with no reward or progress no matter how you play is utterly bland. You should think about rewards from the initial planning and design.

18. You can only understand by what exists

When some novel game is announced, it’s always described as “like such-and-such existing work.” People can’t recognize things without mapping them to something. Understanding what you’ve never seen or heard is hard. That’s exactly why accurately conveying a game no one has started making, from the proposal stage, is very hard.

The one thing Sakurai stresses here is that the planner’s side should, as much as possible, refrain from saying “it’s like such-and-such.” It’s fine for someone hearing the pitch to take it that way, but the maker saying it should be avoided. There are two reasons.

The first is that rather than making it resemble something, the original is better to play. About the only thing that can use another work as a selling point is a sequel. The second is that “like such-and-such” differs greatly by generation and experience. Say “Mario” and some picture Super Mario, others Mario Kart, others Mario as a character. People’s common sense differs, so don’t make your own experience the yardstick. In reality, the right answer lies outside that ruler. In both the proposal and the finished product, do your best to let uniqueness seep through.

Part 3: Sequels, showing scores, character identity, CPU (#19–#26)

This part centers on design that makes a work deeper and easier to play — sequels, scores, characters, and computer opponents (CPU).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zQKLayV2tY

19. How sequels should be

Get popular and sequels and series follow. But if you just put one out as-is, it’s best to assume sales will be about half. Especially harsh for an unusual style.

The biggest reason Sakurai gives for why video games have many sequels is that a game needs game-system development. Video works draft nearly all-new content for both the first and second; a game can only finally start building its content after constructing a contradiction-free base system. That mechanism includes development tools too, and it takes enormous effort to get to fleshing out. So a sequel can improve an existing system and focus on fleshing out, taking a big lead.

On the other hand, why do sales drop? A sequel’s sales are affected by the previous work’s completeness. Burned by the previous game, the will to buy the next drops. When releasing a sequel, you need to make the previous one feel “I want to keep playing,” and convey a power-up of “at least more fun than the previous one.” A sequel makes production advantageous, but won’t sell unless made solidly. Pour it in properly. Note that Smash, partly because the team differs each time, rebuilt even sequels system and all (only between Smash 4 and Ultimate was it the same team).

20. Knowing makes things quick

Overseas FPS and the like have roughly the same controls, even the control feel quite similar. They likely prioritize immersion, world depiction, and scenario differences over game-system uniqueness, Sakurai observes.

The strength here is that what’s already known can skip explanation. In an FPS, you don’t need to carefully explain “R2 fires, L1 throws a grenade” each time. Resembling something tends to be avoided, but de facto standards may be used actively. If it lets you be even a little kinder to players facing the computer, that’s good.

And key config should always be included, even if controls get fiddly. There was once a view that “the designer’s intended controls are recommended, so key config is unnecessary,” but players want to play with free controls. A game should answer that as much as possible. Incidentally, Sakurai recalls fondly playing Chelnov in an arcade with its wiring mistaken (the forward button walked, up fired, sideways jumped) — that discomfort was interesting.

21. Customization is play through imagination

Games where you customize something to play (mecha types, plus weapon and skill selection, etc.). Sakurai says the act of customizing itself must be fun. This applies to making things too — imagining a third party’s reaction is essential to making something good.

To clarify what benefits you get at the end of customizing, Sakurai lists five points.

Especially ②: identity where mastering it has meaning matters, like “wide range but short reach” or “narrow range but flies far.” As for ⑤, things that are fun by dress-up alone even with no stats at all — customization that stands on that alone — exist too. Customization generates a different quality of fun from gameplay.

22. Similar works

Admiring some game and making one close to it. It’s common especially in indie circles, and Sakurai calls it a good thing. Rather than making nothing, just giving it shape and putting it into the world deserves considerable praise.

But there’s something to keep in mind when creating in homage to an existing work. It’s the possibility that “you might as well just play the work it’s based on.” The original game is fun, which is exactly why it’s a model. If so, players would normally think they should just play the original.

So if you make something by imitating, you need not one but several appeals that the original doesn’t have. Since you skip planning and building the hardest system, you have to push harder on everything else. It’s not about whether you surpass the original. Appeal is a direction, so it can’t be measured one-dimensionally. At first imitation is fine. But in the end, do your best so something only that game can offer is born.

23. How to show scores

In old games, about the only element to get serious about was the score. Now there are mountains of elements — EXP, gold, skills, rankings — so a plain score itself, except for some people, is hard to get everyone scrambling to maximize. Yet you’d want to make getting a good score more pleasing. Games are fun because you get serious.

So Sakurai lists examples that devised how to show the score.

Brain Age’s “brain age,” Wii Fit’s “body age,” game “deviation score” (Mighty Bomb Jack, Solomon’s Key), Burnout’s “total damage cost,” Smash’s “Global Smash Power.” The point is each maps the score onto some scale. Say “my Global Smash Power is tens of thousands” and the mood lifts. Don’t take the existence of a score for granted. The way you show it is best thought through, narrowed as far as it can go.

24. Build character identity with parameters

When adding a character in game planning, whether your own or an enemy, it’s good to swing the stats more “peaky.” A game’s rules have an ideal neutral performance, and the point is how far you can deviate from it to hold different possibilities.

This differs greatly between your character and enemy characters. For example, Kirby’s “Gordo” is invincible, immune to attacks, and has no means of attack. Just placing it as-is makes a dull enemy, but by meshing it with other enemies through placement, it gains meaning and becomes a memorable character. A character’s traits are best sharpened enough that you could give a one-line headline.

To build a character’s identity, there’s a troublesome but unavoidable element: special specs (unique specs), raising dedicated programming for things only that character can do. Smash Ultimate’s DLC fighters always have some special spec — the Rebellion gauge, a Persona, a One-Winged system, 8-direction input commands. It takes effort, but being roughly the same isn’t fun. Even numbers can give a character identity, so don’t fold things small; make it bumpy first and then patch the problems.

25. A world with faded color

A game Sakurai recalls as one where he “absolutely had to think about color-coding” is Meteos. What was indispensable there was support for color-blind players. If a game’s spec parts are built on color-coding, relying on it alone makes the game unplayable for color-blind people.

For support, use a color-blindness filter (now a standard Photoshop feature) to check how the game screen actually looks. For colors that tend to blend, give more difference in brightness. It seems obvious, yet it’s a place you must do properly. Not just puzzles — distinguishing power-ups or judging stage gimmicks can also become impossible, so if you’ve been forgetting it, do consider tuning that accounts for the diversity of color vision.

One more color-related development tip: a technique of deliberately checking footage in black and white. With only light and dark standing out, where something is prominent becomes clear. Close to flipping a picture left-right to check balance — a stitch in time.

26. Computer players

Players operated by the computer, CP for short. People and computers are just too different, so a behavior people can’t react to feels terribly unfair. Something like Smash makes CP creation very hard, and in Sakurai’s projects it’s a field with a high ratio entrusted to people.

An action-game CP, since the computer has no eyes, is given information as various values. The opponent’s position and status, a move’s attack range and movement range are turned into data and stored as reach and attack timing. Behavior is decided based on this data. Logic can change mid-way, and it gets angry when its health is low, or is set up with a favored move. The more complex, the more conditions, and judgments can collide and freeze it.

Smash Ultimate’s CP has something like reflexes prepared so it doesn’t react instantaneously, and gets lightly confused when left-right controls are reversed. The direction is tuning that raises aggression. For people who want to fight a strong CP, appropriately waiting or making machine reactions lacks charm, so it was made to respond properly and be beatable while attack-focused. You could make an invincible CP by always perfect-shielding and dodging, but that’s no fun. No matter what, the goal is to entertain — don’t forget that.

Part 4: Climax first, be kind to beginners (#27–#30)

The close of this category centers on building the opening and the player’s time — talk about drawing the player into the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1ILmDMKG08

27. In-game cutscenes

Recent game expression is amazing; for cutting-edge works, a cutscene built on the actual hardware can be higher quality than pre-rendered. Amid that, Sakurai candidly says he “often gets impatient” about cutscenes unrelated to the main thread being absurdly long.

Still, cutscene length can’t be flatly called good or bad. Going deep can make the story clearer or promote emotional immersion. Feeling meaning in a small gesture in a cutscene rarely happens in-game. But it’s also true that in an era where videos get uploaded online, cutscenes hardly become rewards.

Conversation scenes are often made so you can advance line by line, yet cutscenes mostly can’t. Cutscene presentation that lets you skip partway or fast-forward may be user-friendly. And cutscenes should always be skippable all at once. Same for credits — even first-playthrough data doesn’t mean it’s the first time you’ve seen it. Note that QTEs, which take button input during a cutscene, tend to be disliked, so if you do them, do so carefully.

28. Bring the climax first

If you’re making a game, it’s good — if possible — to consider being able to bring the climax right up front. Of course this doesn’t mean fighting the final boss at the start (though you may). It’s that the game’s opening is that important.

Sakurai cites the opening of Final Fantasy VII as an example. Couldn’t that development pass even as a pre-final-dungeon scene? Thinking chronologically, you’d tend to make it narrate why the protagonist joined the organization, but it starts from a highlight. Kid Icarus: Uprising, too, has the final boss Medusa appear within a minute of starting. Ace Attorney also starts from a trial.

A structure where the incident slowly occurs amid daily life is valid, but then hand the baton to the game quickly. Especially since games have a strong “let me play and see what kind of game it is” pull, this is no time to proceed leisurely. Tackle it intending to wake the player up from the very start.

29. Be kind to beginners, make it feel good

Sakurai tells a bitter memory of fighting games. Japanese arcade versus cabinets face away from each other, so you can’t see your opponent. Once, in The King of Fighters ‘95, he fought an intruder and cleanly landed a lavish combo including three special moves. But it felt far too hollow. Peeking at the other side, it was an utterly ordinary couple — the woman.

Thinking “I messed up,” Sakurai reportedly all but quit casual fighting-game matches since. “Some say going easy in a match is rude, but that’s not true.” Not going easy is courtesy only when it’s clear the opponent wishes it. Because a game has no meaning unless it’s enjoyable to play.

For those about to start, you must ease them in kindly. From the first touch until you draw them into the world of the game, you should consciously lower the bar. But the hard part is that overdoing the hand-holding — being noisily dragged along by others — can, conversely, cool people off. You’d want a moderate degree of freedom, and staging where they enter on their own.

30. Be conscious of the time you receive

Told “this game gives you 300 hours of play until you clear it,” you’d probably balk. When weighing whether to buy, however fun it looks, you may pass if it seems to take more time than necessary. Even if it’s actually fun, start thinking “what could I do with that time?” and it’s very scary.

Games are indeed sometimes played for hundreds of hours, Smash included. But spending time on a game should be a “result of it being fun.” From the pre-play sense, play time should rather be grasped as a cost.

Today it’s a scramble for time with everything. With things to do always available, what do you choose? Many spend time on SNS and the internet, because they’re varied and have a low barrier to start. Games have a relatively large barrier to start, so without appeal that exceeds it, it’s hard. That’s exactly why you’d want to provide only the fun parts, or what reinforces them. It’s important to be aware that the time players spend is a cost.

Summary

We’ve now gone through all 4 videos and 30 topics of the “Planning & Game Design” category. Finally, let’s recap the key points of each part (= each source summary video) by individual topic.

Part 1: Frame basics and designing fun (#01–#09)

Part 2: Praise the player, scenario quirks, motion sickness (#10–#18)

Part 3: Sequels, showing scores, character identity, CPU (#19–#26)

Part 4: Climax first, be kind to beginners (#27–#30)

There’s a lot here, but I hope you’ll revisit it starting from whichever part caught your interest. Please also check out the related categories.