Yeah, kind of. I cut quite a few features along the way (era backgrounds, story cutscenes between time jumps, a multi-resource capsule system, cascade score multipliers), and a few core mechanics got pulled back to the classic Mario & Yoshi formula because my own designs weren't reading right. What shipped is a tighter version of the plan: 60s score-attack puzzler, time mechanics, online leaderboard with a live web view..
Your AI point is true: "AI can build fast, but only the person who actually understands the code can keep it alive." Exactly that. I used Claude Code as a pair-programmer and it ripped — but only because I was reading every line and knew where to look when something broke (like I was the teamleader and he was my junior employee). Had a head start on the procedural sprite generation from another prototype too — that helped.
8 hours of sleep in 3 days is rough — go rest! Sitting out short jams to level up your fundamentals sounds like the right call. Looking forward to what you build next.