Yeah, I've got an ever-expanding backlog of games, myself! Thanks for your comments- the Bunny Hill Horror thumbs are basically a funky font and a Deviant Art stock model photo over two photos I took and superimposed- and all edited with Gimp. If there's one thing that's been invaluable to me making games, it's having good experience of graphics software.
This thread, checking out other games and just generally chatting is definitely helpful too. Our coder Mike wanted to do a point n click, but I didn't think it was possible. Having now played Touch Detective on NDS, I'm thinking "wait, maybe we can do that".
And, yeah, working without much of a budget can really necessitate creativity. For the BHH games I made props, got a train down to Tamworth to take photos of its castle, got my friends and family to take photos (typically due to lockdown), learnt how to loop tracks and muffle sound effects in Audacity, played a character myself, begged people to use their music, got permission to take photos in a hospital pharmacy etc. etc. I really enjoy the creative aspect of developing.
And I'm definitely going to start using your sausage analogy in conversations now!