I fall into the same trap a lot too. Lots of time spent on foundational stuff that would be cool to build on top of, and then not much time building on top of it.
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Yeah, this is the smoothest I remember it having gone. It was downstream of an intentional decision to limit the number of mechanics.
It feels a bit double-edged, though, since I *like* games with lots of crunchy interactions and I maybe could have gotten away with more. I think the ideal calibration would have put things just barely inside our limits, and from that perspective I undershot it.
I guess each time it's better to go under than over, but if you never go over it's probably because of not taking enough risks.
It's correct in the sense that you do end up with a result that meets the goal. It also leaves potential on the table that could have gone toward "more game."
If there are two hypothetical undershot projects that both end up polished and complete but differed in level of ambition, I suspect we'd agree that the more ambitious one got the better result.