This is a really fun story, and I love your writing style! Thanks so much for posting this.

A lot of my most creative stuff growing up came out of me needing to work around really weird restrictions in middle/high school. In a really weird way, I'm almost grateful for some of the arbitrary rules and setups because they created a similar environment to what people seek out nowadays with platforms like the Pico 8 -- limitations in an unfamiliar environment force you to be creative with the resources you do have.

Edit: The other articles you reference in this one are also great! https://martinrue.com/give-yourself-more-playtime/ makes me really happy.