Derek Yu Quotes (1982-)

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

“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 immersive— it's kind of a dead end.”

“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.”

“The most important thing to know about video game development and schooling is that no one, whether it's an indie studio or big company, cares about degrees. How could it, when some of its most prominent members are drop-outs or never-beens?”

“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.”

“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.”

“I want people to play around with [Spelunky 2] and not focus so much on "beating" it. I think it's a difficult concept for people to wrap their head[s] around. [...] It is a hard game, but the challenge is really just a backdrop for people to play and experiment.”

“Video games are an artform that's so limitless. In making a game, a big part of the process is putting these limiters on the game itself, so you can actually finish. And I think feedback is a great way to figure out what those limiters should be. It's a way to scope and rescope your game.”

“My worry is that as players we've grown too comfortable with being comfortable. We revel in being consumers of products, rather than contributors to a rapidly-evolving art form. [...] '''We've gone from asking "How does this game play?" to asking, "Does this game play the way I want it to play?"”

“I've found that there are three types of games that pique my interest: games I want to make, games I want to have made, and games I'm good at making. [...] The ideas with the most potential (to be finished, at least) fall into all three categories and also satisfy the requirement "I have the time and resources to actually make this".”

“A degree is a piece of paper that says you can do something in theory— game developers want to know that you have enough passion to do real work, regardless of whether you're being graded on it. And if you're thinking of going indie, it won't matter what other people think— you'll simply need that passion to succeed or else you won't.”

“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.”

“The key to making a challenging game that's not frustrating is to give the player all of the tools that they need to overcome the challenge— and never make it the game's fault that they lost. [...] Roguelikes give you lots of those tools, so even though they're really tough, it's always fun.”

“This won't be your only chance to say something through your art. It's not even your only chance to relay this exact idea— after all, finishing a game doesn't mean you [can't] remake it later (or put out a sequel)! My advice is to abandon the goal of making an objectively great game. Instead, focus on making the best game you can at the time and find joy in your personal growth.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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 instant death— it's like a punchline to this joke, where the joke is really just the tension of being in this dangerous situation. [...] The fact that when [a run] ends, it's instantaneous, I think is very humorous. And it's this nice release, in some sense. It's frustrating, but it's also a release— and it creates this pregnant pause afterwards, where you can really think about what happened.”

“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 me, that means everything starting from a central idea, and then layering on top of that to have a very coherent experience. I think if you develop games that way, [it'll come across] to the players, and they'll have a similar experience that's really smooth.”

“We can't know what to expect and also be surprised. We can't be free from frustration and also be challenged. We can't go unchallenged and also feel satisfied with our accomplishments. Mystery, surprise, tension, challenge, and a real sense of accomplishment always come at the cost of feeling uncomfortable. Given the opportunity, many of us would rather take the easier road, but that's usually the less rewarding one.”

“Spiky games are often thought of as "punishing", but the difficulty — while it's an important part of the design ethos — is in service of the goal, rather than the goal itself. The real goal is to put the player in a state of focus about the game— and to really care about what they're doing at any given moment. [...] Winning or finishing the game is not the main goal of a spiky game, even if that's ultimately what [the player is] working toward.”

“A lot of design decisions that end up having a big effect on the gameplay start as thematic decisions. [...] It's like in chess, how the knight is the only piece that jumps, and that just makes sense-- you're on a horse, and the horse can leap. Those kinds of links-- they're things that game developers think about a lot, and it's not just a bunch of abstract rules. It matters what the game is about story-wise, character-wise, et cetera.”

“I think about making art, in general, as a dialogue. That's what it is, in the end— you're expressing yourself, and your audience gets their chance to express themselves. And especially with video games — it being interactive and it being software — it really is a continuing conversation— very directly now, and very literally. [...] In this moment, it is a conversation, as well as being this long-running conversation throughout history.”

“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.”