I was privy to some of the development process of Duskers, and I would say that Tim worked pretty hard to create opportunities for happy accidents to befall him. There were several other prototypes that he was working on at the same time, but only Duskers crossed the finish line. This is not uncommon among game developers I've known; generally they're bursting with ideas and have many in-progress experiments in various stages at any time. It's a little like an incubator, where there's a diversity of ideas in order to have a better chance of having one be a hit.
There is survivorship bias, but it's kinda all happening within the one designer.
There is survivorship bias, but it's kinda all happening within the one designer.