"I think about making art, in general, as a dialogue. Thats what it is, in the end— youre 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."
Derek Yu is an American independent video game designer, video game artist, and blogger. Yu has designed and co-designed several award-winning games, most famously Spelunky, Aquaria, and Eternal Daughter. He is also notable as a blogger and custodian of the influential TIGSource blog/community about independent video games. He has been called an "indie superstar" and a "genuine icon" of the video
"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, [itll come across] to the players, and theyll have a similar experience thats really smooth."
"The business model of arcades— I dont know how it will be replicated ever again, but it created such an interesting category of games, just based on the unique features of it. And I think its one of the few places where the business model of the arcades really forced this type of design that was— I call it "lean and explosive". [I say] "lean" because you have to push players along to the interesting parts of the game as quickly as possible. And you just dont see that in modern gaming and modern game development. [...] And I say "explosive" because they dont save anything for the end. The experiences are quite short: to play through an arcade game, its 30 minutes to an hour, tops, for the longer arcade games. And you dont want to save anything for the end because players are renting the game a quarter at a time. And so, starting with Stage 1, youve got to put it all out on the table, while still — in the later parts of the game — giving people something to look forward to. And I think that has been very influential on Spelunky 1 and 2, and its just a type of design I really enjoy."
"Theres a certain glee [among game developers like Bennett and me] from players feeling frustrated and disappointed. And its not because we dislike players. Its 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."
"Ive 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 Im 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"."
"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 dont want to go through it sentence by sentence, making sure every sentence is perfect before you move on. Get an outline down."
"Ultimately, thats what makes the most interesting game that we can make— if its 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 thats the most important thing for me— whether its 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."