Derek Yu Quotes

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

I've started to think of myself, personally, as a "work in progress" that will never reach completion— but in order to keep progressing, I have to release games. [...] You're releasing a game, but you yourself are not "done". And so, I think that takes some of the pressure off for me— to think about things that way. And in general— to think about art and life as this cyclic thing, because you're going to keep going and make more things, so just put out what you've got and do the best you can. It's not a final judgment of you, as a person and an artist, when you release a game.

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.

There's a certain glee [among game developers like Bennett and me] from players feeling frustrated and disappointed. And it's not because we dislike players. It's actually because we really care about players, and these are emotions that you need to feel to have a well-rounded human experience in a video game.

The business model of arcades— I don't know how it will be replicated ever again, but it created such an interesting category of games, just based on the unique features of it. And I think it's one of the few places where the business model of the arcades really forced this type of design that was— I call it "lean and explosive". [I say] "lean" because you have to push players along to the interesting parts of the game as quickly as possible. And you just don't see that in modern gaming and modern game development. [...] And I say "explosive" because they don't save anything for the end. The experiences are quite short: to play through an arcade game, it's 30 minutes to an hour, tops, for the longer arcade games. And you don't want to save anything for the end because players are renting the game a quarter at a time. And so, starting with Stage 1, you've got to put it all out on the table, while still — in the later parts of the game — giving people something to look forward to. And I think that has been very influential on Spelunky 1 and 2, and it's just a type of design I really enjoy.

This is a straight-up religious problem: the idea of the player and the developer. Because I think [for] some developers, creating a game, it's a little universe— they don't want to be a part of that universe. They want the player to play and just experience the universe as created, and not be involved. And then, I think there are other developers [who] do want you to know "Hey— I designed this! My fingerprints are all over this." And then, there are players [who] I think want to play games basically as the "atheists" of that game world— where they want to just experience the world as-is, with all of its flaws and all of its ugly warts. And then, there are players who play, and because they know that there is a designer behind all of it, they want to basically pray to that deity of the universe to change it for them! [...] I think it has to do with fundamental differences in the way different designers want their game to be experienced, and also fundamental differences between different players and how they want to treat that relationship between the player of the game world and the designer.

As game designers, we naturally gravitate towards order, because we create rules, and we create systems, and we create structure. And those are all things that belong to this idea of order. [...] And so, I think it makes complete sense that as game designers, we would embrace order, and we would be very attracted to things like "balance", things like "elegance" in game design. [But] more recently — and maybe a big part of this is my experience with Spelunky — I've started to rethink that a little bit. And I've started to think more about chaos as the defining trait of game design. Or at least that's something that really appeals to me right now— this idea that we're not creating these ordered systems, but we're creating chaos for the player to find order in.

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.

Everything in Spelunky was designed with a similar sensibility, where we're trying to draw out the personality of each area, of each monster, from very simple actions and things that they do. And when they all come together, you get this complexity that's very interesting, and that makes every time you play in this randomized environment fun— because you start to see — over time — all the different patterns that can arise. [...] That's the emergent gameplay that comes out of it.

One of the most fun things about games is learning. It's learning the game and getting that knowledge for yourself about this little world. The only way you can really do that is by figuring it out yourself. If the game tells me something before I get a chance to learn it myself: 1) that's really annoying, but 2) it robs [me] of that experience.

To make a world feel really real and immersive, you have to take a step back. And you have to try not to guide the player so much — and show them everything — because that is the fun part about games— discovering things on [your] own, making [your] own mistakes. That's what gives the games meaning. When I feel like someone has their hand on my shoulder, and they're just pushing me around, I feel like I'm losing a lot of the meaning of games, which is that joy of discovery.

Now that Spelunky is done, what I feel most of all is a sense that I'm part of an even bigger puzzle that includes the people [who] influenced me, the players who play Spelunky, and whomever Spelunky has influenced in turn. [...] In the end, isn't that why we create things? Not just for the power of putting something into existence, but to connect with people and be part of the conversation that is human history. To have something that speaks for us when we're not speaking and even after we're gone.

The more I play and create games, the less convinced I am that the difficulty of games should be thought of in terms of a linear or exponential ramp upwards where, as the player gets stronger, you need to make the opposition increase proportionally in strength. [...] While some form of escalation certainly feels good in a challenging game, [there's] something futile and perhaps nihilistic about endlessly cranking a single knob that goes from easy to hard. Rather, I believe it makes more sense to think about difficulty in terms of the game's overall pacing. Difficulty should ebb and flow, and make room for other aspects of play.

I'm obsessed with finishing as a skill. Over the years, I've realized that so many of the good things that have come my way are because I was able to finish what I started. [...] Irrespective of how big the project was, each one I finished gave something back to me, whether it was new fans, a new benchmark for what I could accomplish, or new friends [whom] I could work with and learn from.

I often compare the process of finding and working with teammates to dating. In any big project, you're not just looking for a set of artistic and technical skills to fit your own, you're also looking for someone who shares your creative vision, who communicates well, and who will be as passionate and dedicated about the project as you are in the long run. [...] Ultimately, if you're planning on releasing a commercial video game, you are looking for "marriage material"— a committed, stable partner you can get along with for a long time.