That's how you make [a] game feel truly alive: you cut out the mundane stuff! [...] I think this pursuit of "realism" to make games feel more immersi… - Derek Yu

Not that there's anything wrong with wanting challenge for the sake of challenge, but it does make things that much more confusing when people are trying to evaluate spiky games. Again: the difficulty is only one part of the equation— it's the "heat" part of spicy food. I don't eat spicy food to feel pain, but the pain wakes me up— and it's the gateway to interesting flavors that you can't find anywhere else. The flavor is what makes spicy food good, and it gets easier and easier to withstand the heat the more you experience it.

That's a type of game that I really like, is one that grows on you a lot over time, and your understanding of it feels like it's on an exponential curve. I just hope that enough people are willing to give [Spelunky] a chance, [who may] not be used to that.

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.