Where is Mr. Kim? How Side Projects Get Out of Control

Table of Contents

The Tale of Mr. Kim (or, Why Scope Creep Haunts Us All) #

Someone on r/sideproject shared this gem: “Where is Mr. Kim? I built an entire village just to lose one guy in it.” It’s hauntingly relatable.

Mr. Kim is, of course, your metaphorical MVP (or Minimum Viable Product, for those not neck-deep in startup-speak). He starts simple. A clear need, a focused build. But then the wolves of ambition and shiny features close in. Suddenly, “find Mr. Kim” becomes “let’s build a procedurally generated medieval village with real-time weather effects and NPCs that quote Nietzsche.” Fun? Totally. Useful? Debatable.

This post hit because every indie maker has been there. You set out to build exactly one thing. Somewhere along the way you end up 37 tabs deep in YouTube tutorials for topographical map generators. Why? Well, let’s untangle it.

The Psychological Horror of Feature Creep #

This village scenario isn’t rare—it’s textbook scope creep, driven by some very human forces.

The Fear of Mediocrity (a.k.a. “Is it enough?”)
Someone on the thread nailed it: “I kept thinking if I added this one thing, my game/app/tool would stand out.” This is the seductive trap. One feature becomes two. Two features become scope explosion. And now you’re 6 months over budget chasing perfection.
The Fun Factor
Don’t lie. You started adding NPCs with personalities not because users need them but because you thought it was cool. Creators often fall in love with complexity. And that love is why half the indie projects on GitHub look 80% done but take forever to ship.
Tools Make It Too Easy
Modern dev stacks reward overengineering. Why stop at “build a village with 10 houses” when Unreal Engine can procedurally generate one with endless variation? Why ship a basic CRUD app when Supabase makes building Firebase clones ridiculously fast? Except… all this power gives you just enough rope to hang yourself.

Here’s the kicker: the people who actually needed your project (your village “citizens”) stopped waiting months ago.

Why This Hits Different In 2026 #

Look, it’s not 2014 anymore. The current indie-builder landscape has leveled way up.

Tools are bonkers now.
From Tailwind CSS to Godot 4.0, we’ve never had this much power to build incredible stuff. But more tools mean more temptation. Just browsing Product Hunt shows projects shipping with features no one asked for—but they’re immaculate.
Attention spans are shorter.
TikTok-level short. Your users are not going to wait while you perfect every streetlight in your metaphorical village. The most successful recent products (e.g., Arc Browser, Mem, whatever AI thing is hot right now) launched small, iterated later.
Everyone’s tired.
It’s harder to care deeply. I’m serious. The pandemic-era hustle energy? Gone. Now people want things solved yesterday. No frills, no “village,” just one clear road to finding Mr. Kim.

How (Maybe) to Stop Losing Mr. Kim #

Define the Non-Negotiable Core
Write this on an actual piece of paper: What’s the single thing your project must do to succeed? Ship that first. Later, you can add villages, empires, or, I don’t know, multiverses.
Set Fake Deadlines
One sneaky trick I’ve used: set milestones your project has zero choice but to hit. E.g., “demo this at X meetup in 3 weeks.” You’d be amazed what you stop working on when a deadline looms.
Goodbye, Perfectionism
Instead of playing “guess what users want,” throw your 80% solution out there and watch for feedback. Remember, the MVP doesn’t have to be polished—it just has to work. Hell, Slack started as a game, pivoted to a comms tool, and jammed out an MVP that no one today would consider “finished.”
Build for Mr. Kim First
Treat Mr. Kim like an actual human user. Maybe that’s your mom, your friend, or commenters in your niche subreddit. Whatever your project is, make sure it solves their problem before you add more bells and whistles.

Final Thoughts: Simplicity Over Villages #

Could the hypothetical game-dev on Reddit have shipped a working “find Mr. Kim” game without a 50-hour village-building sidequest? Definitely. But the core problem is universal: ambition often runs ahead of execution.

The trick is to keep your focus. Build tiny villages, not sprawling metropolises. And if you lose Mr. Kim? Just don’t delete the project folder—you might need it again.

FAQ #

Why does scope creep happen so often with indie projects? #

It’s usually a mix of overexcitement about your own ideas and pressure to stand out from the crowded field. Modern tools also tempt you into adding complexity because it often feels “free” to include just one more feature.

What’s the best way to avoid scope creep in the first place? #

Define your project’s core goal—what’s the one thing it MUST do? Write it down. Then emotionally commit to shipping a version that only satisfies that goal, even if it hurts your creator ego.

How do you know if a feature is worth including? #

Ask: does this solve a direct pain point for the users you’re targeting? If yes, prioritize it. If it’s just “cool” (but unnecessary), park it in your notes for version 2.