Sakuari's Design Philosophies

[El Duderino]

For those of you that don't know, Sakuari actually gave two Game Developers Conference (GDC) talks, the straightforward Brawl talk about the characters fitting together, and another more esoteric talk on game design. Given the amount of hogwash typically associated with interpreting Sakuari's quotes, I thought it might be beneficial to better understand his underlying game design philosophies when discussing Smash 4:

Sakuari on Risk vs Return/Reward (post Melee)

Paraphasing relevant info (bare with me, it is a lot of broken English from one of the translators):

-'Space invader's fire position trailing movement was a bug, but positively impacted the risk vs reward'
-'Kirby's Adventure was designed for beginners after noticing Mario was difficult for some, though Mario was ultimately more refined' (again relating to risk vs reward)
-'If the risk is greater, the game is more stimulating, however it will be more difficult and challenging'
-'SFII's grab, high, mid, low attacks have separate risks and rewards'
-'Many players and SFII clones mistakenly assumed mashing punch and firing (hadukens) is all there is to a fighting game'
-'Simply attacking is not the only essence, how you understand the tactics and the fight is very important'
-'Randomness is one way to avoid otherwise dull processes' (using card games as an example)
-'Game playability can be important to the fun of the game, but it is not everything to the game'

More direct-ish Quotes:


-"As I mentioned earlier, the difference between a beginner and experienced game player is very large. Of course people used to playing games can do it well. But people who are good and people who are beginners should both still be able to enjoy the game and I think it is extremely important to make the game have that type of enjoyment for both beginners and advanced players."

-"Smash Brothers does not have a health gauge, the enemy will become easier to blow away when they receive more damage. This is because we are trying to lower the (initial) risk as much as possible and at the end still feel really great about it."


Q&A

-After Kirby's Adventure, Sakuari added Kirby's copy ability because he wanted the games to appeal beyond the initial 'beginners' audience.

-"If it turns out there are a lot of games being made for beginers, I might turn around and create something for the very advanced players"

-In repsonse to how thoroughly tested Melee was (question included wavedashing) - 'After a certain point of testing we decide the fundamentals are finished (and move onto content creation), sometimes I have regrets and touch things up when I can' (followed by explaining Melee's changes across regions) Basically he dodged wavedashing, but of course addressed it later.


Anyways, there is a lot I did not include, feel free to add to it. I hope this sparks some good discussion because it is by far the largest peak we have into his underlying thought process.

 

[Hokori]

-"As I mentioned earlier, the difference between a beginner and experience game player is very large. Of course people used to playing games can do it well. But people who are good and people who are beginners should both still be able to enjoy the game and I think it is extremely important to make the game have that type of enjoyment for both beginners and advanced players."

Hmm..extremely important for both beginner and advanced play huh? So I definitely believe tech skill will still apply towards the next game as well. Sakurai cares

This makes me wonder if they're going to add in some different things in SSB4 like they did with Wavedashing in Melee. But I dunno..if he's concerned about the growing gap between the players, then I'm not sure if we'll get anything intentional like that in the next title. I had no idea it was even intentional, so going back and looking at that link was informative.

 

[KrIsP!]

If too many people are making games for beginners he'll make something for the advanced players? Do it sakurai or at the very least don't work against it. Beauty of smash is how it can appeal to casual and advanced players.

 

[El Duderino]

Hmm..extremely important for both beginner and advanced play huh? So I definitely believe tech skill will still apply towards the next game as well. Sakurai cares

Keep in mind this talk was held 2004 and pre-dates Brawl. It is less an indication of where the series is going and more a look into his general design approach. But yes, the idea that Sakuari is not interested in game design that accommodates "advanced players" can be put to rest. He just also approves of taking the initiative to lower the barrier of entry for new players.

After listening to the entire talk it was painstakingly clear he is not thinking along the lines of "casual vs core", more "beginners + advanced players" and "risk vs reward" at different levels of skill.

 

[El Duderino]

For another take, here is Gamasutra's takeaway:
"Sarukai-San started by analyzing risk and return on an abstract basis, using the classic Space Invaders game. His analysis of this game served as an example on how to achieve gameplay balance, and encourage player strategies, through the use of these two constructs."

Another persons breakdown:
"Sakurai made the point that a player only enjoys a game so long as he's in an envelope of risk, and the more skilled he becomes, the more risk he expects to undertake and the greater the rewards he expects to reap."

And another:
"The talks focus was how risk and reward systems in games are tied together; the more risky a situation is in a game, the greater the reward can be generated from overcoming it."

Goes hand in hand with his Kid Icarus Iwata asks:
"The lower the difficulty setting, the lower the level of the weapons and the hearts (in-game money) that you get. This is Sakurai's idea of risk and return. They made so that not only advanced players can enjoy the game."

(one thing he also did make a point of in this talk is the idea you can introduce elements for beginners while still including higher risk vs reward scenarios for players looking for greater stimulation)

 

[Frostwraith]

This whole philosophy is very evident in Kid Icarus: Uprising.

In single player, you have the Fiend's Cauldron, which lets you decide the difficulty level ranging from 0 to 9 in 0.1 increments. The harder you make the game, the more hearts you will spill in the cauldron, the harder the level will be, but more hearts will you gain from defeating foes and the better will the weapons you find be. There is it: higher risk, better rewards.

On the flipside, you can also use hearts to lower the difficulty level from the standard 2.0 difficulty. You will use the hearts to have a bigger chance to pass a level. Once again, risk and reward.

Finally, in multiplayer, users with better weapons will be more rewarding to defeat than those with weaker weapons. Sure, a player with a stronger weapon will be harder to defeat, but if you manage to defeat such foe, you will be rewarded with more score, so it's not just a matter of doing kills.

I'd expect that the new SSB will be more focused in this game design philosophy than previous games of the series. I'm not sure how, but it will be present in a way or another.

 

[Big-Cat]

I think he has a lot of great points, but I feel how he goes about implementing them has a lot of holes depending on the game.


-'Many players and SFII clones mistakenly assumed mashing punch and firing (hadukens) is all there is to a fighting game'
I will definitely agree with this, but I never felt he never tried to address this issue by debunking it in the games with a tutorial or something.

-'Simply attacking is not the only essence, how you understand the tactics and the fight is very important'
See above.
-'Randomness is one way to avoid otherwise dull processes' (using card games as an example)
True, but randomness should not be intrusive. Fighting games have a natural ad lib (as he says in an Uprising interview) so random outcomes on attacks aren't necessary unless it's strictly a cosmetic change to add to the character (like Taokaka throwing random things).

-'Game playability can be important to the fun of the game, but it is not everything to the game'
I think this depends on the game and genre. This is definitely the case with an RPG or visual novel type game as the story is part of the overall experience.

-"Smash Brothers does not have a health gauge, the enemy will become easier to blow away when they receive more damage. This is because we are trying to lower the (initial) risk as much as possible and at the end still feel really great about it."
Yet I feel that this has really impacted the heavy weight characters more than anything else. Heavies have to get in to do damage, but their risk is too big should they get hit.

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

There are RPG's I enjoy which have a lackluster story but more customization and gameplay mechanics.

...actually, most RPG's have lackluster stories. They just act like soap operas or throw in bizarre or exciting things trying to wow the player into believing it's a good story



Edit: What if heavy characters had some sort of resistance to damage?

 

[Big-Cat]

That's why I said it's part of the overall experience. Things like customization and battle systems are parts of the whole package.

Heavy characters getting hyper armor would arguably make them too good. They need to be rounded out better is what they really need.

 

[El Duderino]

-'Game playability can be important to the fun of the game, but it is not everything to the game'
I think this depends on the game and genre. This is definitely the case with an RPG or visual novel type game as the story is part of the overall experience.

Actually he covers that in his talk. I just pulled what I consider the relevant highlights are. He talks about literally everything under the sun. Have a listen.