Edmund McMillen on making an uncomfortable and stressful experience with The End is Nigh, and how it parallels the game's development

Edmund McMillen is no stranger to creating challenging games. He was part of the team that put together the original Super Meat Boy, and continues to work on unforgiving games like The Binding of Isaac. In-between those titles came The End is Nigh, a title that truly embraces the idea if player discomfort. In an interview with Gamasutra, McMillen addresses the game's challenging nature, and how it was one of the main development goals.

"There were a lot of subtle elements in my past platformers that I never fully explored because I was worried about alienating the audience. I wanted to make a game that was honestly a bit uncomfortable to play for people who have issues with stress. I wanted to make a game about stress, pressure and expectation. I feel like I was able to do exactly that in simple and elegant ways I'm quite proud of.

In the past, people would say my work felt like a love letter to classic video games. I wanted The End is Nigh to walk the line of a suicide note or retirement letter. Its themes really are an abstract tale of the dark side of game development - the lonely, stressful, paranoid dregs of the creative process."