I think my word is "flow" for game design, because I think you want your game to flow, and I think you want your game development process to flow. To… - Derek Yu

I like that in general: just having a little bit of unpredictability in each level. And I really like dense level design with a lot going on. I think for this level, the message that I want to convey is "Find peace through hell". And that's kind of my design philosophy in general.

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.

When it comes down to it, I feel like art should never be compromised for any reason— especially not to satisfy a certain group of people. [...] There was no compromise for Spelunky.