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

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.

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 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.