Derek Yu Quotes

Ultimately, that's what makes the most interesting game that we can make— if it's not just what players are expecting or what players want the game to be. [...] I would like people to feel strongly about it. I think that's the most important thing for me— whether it's love it, or not like it, or have conflicting feelings about certain parts of the game. I want the game to have its own personality, and that personality is the personality of the team making it.

The best metric for scoping a project is not technical skill, but the scope of the previous games you've finished!

Mario made more sense to me, thinking about it as an "athletic game". Even little details like Charging Chuck— there are just random sports characters that are in the Mario universe. And the fact that — at the end of a Super Mario World level — there's that bar that goes up and down, and you're trying to hit it— it kind of feels like hurdles. The fact that there is a timer in the game. [...] It all comes together to make each Mario level feel almost like a race where you can also explore.

The "joy of discovery" is one of the fundamental joys of play itself. Not just the joy of discovering secrets within the game, but also the joy of uncovering the creator's vision. It's that "Aha!" moment where it all makes sense, and behind the world the player can feel the touch of another creative mind. In order for it to be truly joyful, however, it must remain hidden from plain view— not carved as commandments into stone tablets but revealed, piece by piece, through the player's exploration of the game's rules.

I tend to think about my life in terms of games. "This is the Aquaria point of my life." "This is the Spelunky point of my life." As to what [Spelunky] actually represents — what does that time mean to me — I think: coming more into my own, as a game developer, and figuring out how it was I want to work exactly. I feel like I learned a lot with Aquaria, and I'm super proud of that game, but Spelunky was where I feel like I hit my stride.

The best games come out of a mutual respect between the creator and the player. The player does not demand a certain experience from the creator because they trust in the creator's expertise and because they want to be surprised. A personal creative vision cannot bloom without the freedom afforded by that trust. At the same time, creators must trust in the curiosity and abilities of their players. Continuously interrupting play to steer players with direct text messages and other obvious hints not only infantilizes them, but it also reveals the creator's insecurity in their ability to design games.

We can't know what to expect and also be surprised. We can't be free from frustration and also be challenged. We can't go unchallenged and also feel satisfied with our accomplishments. Mystery, surprise, tension, challenge, and a real sense of accomplishment always come at the cost of feeling uncomfortable. Given the opportunity, many of us would rather take the easier road, but that's usually the less rewarding one.

A degree is a piece of paper that says you can do something in theory— game developers want to know that you have enough passion to do real work, regardless of whether you're being graded on it. And if you're thinking of going indie, it won't matter what other people think— you'll simply need that passion to succeed or else you won't.

The key to making a challenging game that's not frustrating is to give the player all of the tools that they need to overcome the challenge— and never make it the game's fault that they lost. [...] Roguelikes give you lots of those tools, so even though they're really tough, it's always fun.

Video games are an artform that's so limitless. In making a game, a big part of the process is putting these limiters on the game itself, so you can actually finish. And I think feedback is a great way to figure out what those limiters should be. It's a way to scope and rescope your game.

I focus as much on the process of making games as the games themselves, because I have the experience now to know how hard game-making is at any level. I don't just make a game because I want to make the game; I make it because it's also the right time to make it and the right people are around to help me make it. I never assume that a game is going to get made out of sheer will. A lot of the decisions that you make in the conceptual phase will either help you or haunt you, once the development starts.

That might be the core of game design to me— making connections from every part of the game to every other part of the game. [...] I think it's been really fun to be able to do Spelunky Classic, Spelunky HD, and now, Spelunky 2. And it really feels to me like seeing the evolution of a lot of our favorite childhood franchises and seeing how they've grown up, and being inspired by that.

Spiky games are often thought of as "punishing", but the difficulty — while it's an important part of the design ethos — is in service of the goal, rather than the goal itself. The real goal is to put the player in a state of focus about the game— and to really care about what they're doing at any given moment. [...] Winning or finishing the game is not the main goal of a spiky game, even if that's ultimately what [the player is] working toward.

I want people to play around with [Spelunky 2] and not focus so much on "beating" it. I think it's a difficult concept for people to wrap their head[s] around. [...] It is a hard game, but the challenge is really just a backdrop for people to play and experiment.