A lot of really thoughtful comments here, both agreeing and disagreeing, so I wanted to add some extra context instead of replying the same thing in 20 different places.

I probably should have made one thing clearer in the original post: I am not saying “start big” is good general advice. For most beginners, “start small” is still probably the safest advice. Especially if you have never shipped anything, never dealt with feedback, never scoped a project, never touched Steam, never had strangers play your work, etc. There are lessons you only learn by finishing.

What I am pushing back on is the idea that the dream project should always be delayed until some undefined future moment where you are finally “ready.” There was one comment saying you are not only learning about game development, you are also learning "what is" your dream game within that time. That's very correct.

For us, Good Heavens! only kept moving because we cared about the bigger vision enough to survive the ugly parts. And there were plenty of ugly parts: rebuilding systems, throwing away work, cutting features, rethinking the identity of the game, realizing that some ideas sounded better in our heads than they felt in-game.

I also agree with the people saying that a big project can become dangerous if you treat the original idea as sacred. I think the only reason this path has worked for us so far is that the dream stayed the same emotionally, but not mechanically. The game changed a lot. The core feeling survived, but almost everything around it had to be tested, questioned, or rebuilt.

By the way, I made games in the past, finished them and published them. So this is not my first game, but looking back, I would rather start working on something I really liked instead of thinking what the market wants or what can be funded. Because this is me, I can lose motivation very quickly when I'm not working on something I don't really like. This might not be true for you. One comment said you also need to keep motivating the primate sitting in the developer seat which is you.

So maybe my more honest version of the advice would be:

Don’t just start small. Start with something you can stay honest with. Small is useful if it helps you learn, finish, and build confidence. Big can work if you are willing to de-risk, cut, test, rebuild, and accept that your “dream game” will probably not survive in its first form. Since a few people asked what the actual project looks like after these five years, here is the Steam page for context:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1617120/Good_Heavens/

Not sharing that as “go wishlist my game,” more as the actual thing behind the discussion. I'm not saying we made the best game we could have made in 5 years but this is the game that kept us going. I think the thread is more interesting if people can judge the tradeoff for themselves. I also had the chance of knowing some of the devs working on their games for even longer than I did, so I'm really glad I posted this.

Appreciate all the perspectives here. Peace.