Spend enough time in college, and you’ll notice that there are certain staples that you can find in virtually  every dorm.  Most of these staples—like beer-can pyramids, Gilmore Girls watch parties, and that one guy who plays terrible techno music at an offensively high volume—are not terribly surprising to see.  There is one staple, however, whose presence may come as something of a surprise.  Since we assume that you already read the title, we imagine that you’ve already guessed that we’re talking about the NES classic Tecmo Super Bowl—in our experience, it seems like virtually every college dorm in America (or at least virtually every college dorm with a healthy population of male students) has at least one guy with an NES and the game.  Inevitably, that one guy introduces the game to 10 other guys in the dorm, and they all start playing the game religiously (and trying to recreate classic moments in Tecmo Super Bowl history).  In an age where new technology becomes obsolete in a couple of years, it’s more than a little impressive that a video game that was made almost 20 years (and 4 generations of consoles and probably over a hundred football video games) ago still has the power to draw people in.  The question that arises—at least for us—is what gave Tecmo Super Bowl that staying power?  What about TSB gives it the ability to stay relevant in spite of its apparently severe shortcomings, and how can you apply that same formula? As we see it, there is one critical element to Tecmo’s success that can help you draw up your own blueprint for success.

To put it succinctly Tecmo was willing to be ambitious, but also able to avoid over-reaching.  For a game made in the early 90’s, Tecmo Super Bowl is incredibly rich in features.  The game features adjustable play-books, complete rosters, a full season mode, special cut-scenes, and even a bizarre special halftime show for players good enough to make it to the “Big Game.”  It would not be a stretch to say that TSB was the most realistic game football game ever made, and it held that title until the next generation of consoles made their debut.  And yet, in spite of this wealth of features (and the extreme limitations of the available technology) the game play remained seamless and (virtually) glitch-free.  Tecmo pulled this off by picking their battles.  A good number of features (such as the ability to block punts and the inclusion of penalties) were scrapped during development so that the developers could focus on refining the features that weren’t cut.  This is (or should be) standard operating procedure for any project; what made Tecmo remarkable was their apparently perfect vision for what should be cut—they recognized what would not improve the game (if you play any Madden Football games, do you ever get excited at the chance to unsuccessfully try to block a punt for the 500th time?).

It’s often difficult to see the forest for the trees when you’re elbow-deep in a big project.  You get an idea in your head for what your ideal “finished project” should look like, and it’s easy to conflate what the project “should” look like with what it has to look like.  It’s a good strategy to work on one detail at a time, but it backfires if you start getting attached to every detail of the project.  Cutting anything out can feel like killing your own child, and so the temptation is often to just try to do everything.  The result of this is, almost inevitably, a watered down final product.  When you’re working on anything—whether it’s a project for a class, a small business, or even a personal project—be mindful of what the ultimate goal of that project is.  Don’t be afraid of hard work, but if any one detail undermines that ultimate goal, don’t be afraid to cut that detail.

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