Dirty Game Development Tricks
My favorite little trick of these was that the bushes and the clouds in Super Mario Bros. were the same shape (presumably to save space): <a href="http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/01/the-clouds-and-bushes-in-super-mario-bros-are-the-same/" rel="nofollow">http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/01/the-clouds-a...</a><p>I would <i>never</i> want to enter the game development industry but I would love to shadow them for a few weeks.  It sounds like a culture of required innovation (and, you know, eternal crunch time).