When I run into a difficult design choice, where multiple options look good for my goals, I ask myself 3 questions:

1. How important is it we get this decision right? If a decision can be easily changed later, or is a choice between multiple good, workable options, might as well just pick something and move to the next thing.

2. If it’s important we get it right, WHEN do we need to make this decision? Some decisions affect other decisions downstream and need to be locked in early. Others might matter a lot, but don’t need to be decided until the game is deep in production. For difficult and important decisions you can afford to put off without causing other issues, might as well wait until I have the maximum amount of information to make those decisions. Projects can shift in surprising ways, resources can open or vanish, etc.

3. If I need to make the decision now, and it’s still unclear which is better, which option is Lower Scope? All else being uncertain, saving dev time is always good. Saving scope means more time to make the game better in other ways.

Following these tie-breakers keeps things moving.