--- title: When Complexity Becomes Your Enemy in Game Dev | daily.dev description: A game developer shares a personal experience of over-engineering a simple two-state UI menu system in Unity by implementing a full state machine when 20 lines... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/when-complexity-becomes-your-enemy-in-game-dev-wsmbruw0a twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: When Complexity Becomes Your Enemy in Game Dev | daily.dev og:description: A game developer shares a personal experience of over-engineering a simple two-state UI menu system in Unity by implementing a full state machine when 20 lines... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/when-complexity-becomes-your-enemy-in-game-dev-wsmbruw0a og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/wsMBrUW0a.png og:image:alt: When Complexity Becomes Your Enemy in Game Dev og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # When Complexity Becomes Your Enemy in Game Dev **[git-amend](https://daily.dev/sources/git-amend)** · 12 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A game developer shares a personal experience of over-engineering a simple two-state UI menu system in Unity by implementing a full state machine when 20 lines of straightforward code would have sufficed. The post explains what over-engineering is, why experienced developers fall into the trap, and how to recognize it using principles like YAGNI (You Ain't Gonna Need It). Two concrete examples are walked through: a state machine for a two-screen menu and a dependency injection/service locator setup for an enemy stats system. The core advice is to build the simplest solution that works for current requirements, and only introduce complexity when there is a clear, known reason to do so. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [You're Not Building Netflix: Stop Coding Like You Are](https://daily.dev/posts/you-re-not-building-netflix-stop-coding-like-you-are-fvaumfnpy) · DEV · 673 upvotes · 55 comments - [What the hell have you built.](https://daily.dev/posts/what-the-hell-have-you-built--hnpv2bjl3) · Hacker News · 42 upvotes · 5 comments - [How to Know If your Software Is Overcomplicated or Oversimplified?](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-know-if-your-software-is-overcomplicated-or-oversimplified--iaysxkkga) · Three Dots Labs · 48 upvotes · 1 comments - [I Thought Working Code Was Good Enough. I Was Wrong.](https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-working-code-was-good-enough-i-was-wrong--sht2vtiff) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#general-programming](https://daily.dev/tags/general-programming), [#game-development](https://daily.dev/tags/game-development), [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#unity](https://daily.dev/tags/unity), [#dependency-injection](https://daily.dev/tags/dependency-injection) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/when-complexity-becomes-your-enemy-in-game-dev-wsmbruw0a) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"When Complexity Becomes Your Enemy in Game Dev","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/when-complexity-becomes-your-enemy-in-game-dev-wsmbruw0a","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/when-complexity-becomes-your-enemy-in-game-dev-wsmbruw0a"},"datePublished":"2026-07-19T07:59:04.173Z","dateModified":"2026-07-19T09:46:33.248Z","description":"A game developer shares a personal experience of over-engineering a simple two-state UI menu system in Unity by implementing a full state machine when 20 lines...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tCVFxkbf9cw/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tCVFxkbf9cw/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"git-amend","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"git-amend","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--dR-FewbM--/f_auto,q_auto/v1784447928/logos/git-amend?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/git-amend"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/when-complexity-becomes-your-enemy-in-game-dev-wsmbruw0a","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"general-programming,game-development,architecture,unity,dependency-injection","timeRequired":"PT12M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"When Complexity Becomes Your Enemy in Game Dev","description":"A game developer shares a personal experience of over-engineering a simple two-state UI menu system in Unity by implementing a full state machine when 20 lines...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tCVFxkbf9cw/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-07-19T07:59:04.173Z","duration":"PT12M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/wsMBrUW0a","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/tCVFxkbf9cw"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"git-amend","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/git-amend"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"When Complexity Becomes Your Enemy in Game Dev"}]} ```