A portion of a PSBlog interview with Warren Spector...

PSB: Epic Mickey 2 is a big, colourful title that seems both family-friendly but also deep enough for core gamers to enjoy. How hard is it striking a balance between the two?

WS: Man, making games at all is hard! Making games where “play-style matters” is even harder. Luckily, making games where players really get to decide how to interact with the world and the characters makes reaching a diverse audience a little easier. It sounds crazy, but it’s true.
The thing to remember is that, in most, if not all cases, if a player tries something – fighting or erasing or sneaking or platforming – and it isn’t working, or it’s too hard, or they’re not having enough fun, they can just try something else. When there’s more than one way to solve every game problem – or nearly every one – reaching players of different skill levels, different ages, with different interests, is kind of a given. But don’t underestimate how hard it is to make games that offer choices and real consequences! That’s the tricky bit…