One of my favorite video essay's on this is "Nintendo - Putting Play First" by Game Makers Toolkit [1]. It goes into when making a game, Nintendo first determines the mechanic they want to focus on; jumping, throwing a hat, shooting paint, etc and finding out how to make it fun, then building and iterating on the idea.
It's how they can keep putting out essentially the same games but are completely different.
It's how they can keep putting out essentially the same games but are completely different.
1. https://youtu.be/2u6HTG8LuXQ