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, th… - Derek Yu

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.

Feeling stuck? Push forward. Start working on the next level, the next enemy, the next whatever. Not only is it helpful for motivational purposes, but you want to get a sense for how your whole game will play out. Just like writing— you don't want to go through it sentence by sentence, making sure every sentence is perfect before you move on. Get an outline down.

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.