1) I spent a lot of time just ruminating in my head about different ways to make the 18 cards go far while keeping the rules simple. The limitations made it so I had to keep the interest in the intersection of different cards and with the interaction with the opponent rather than MORE COOL CARD POWERS.
2) It turned out fun! My wife and I played probably 10 or so games back to back and it was nice to have a new really chill, fast-playing game like Jaipur or Lost Cities or something (but shorter!)
3) Probably not gonna take this one any farther, just because for the old "day job" I mostly focus on single player things for technical reasons (don't have to do multiplayer code for digital or produce physical things for tabletop).