Scope
Also said as Project scope
How much game you are trying to make: how many features, levels, characters and hours. It is the one project variable you fully control, and beginners nearly always set it too high.
Each thing you add has to work with everything already there, so costs compound, and the last features cost far more than their estimates. Most projects that die, die of this.
Say it
“This is out of scope. We have a two-person team and nine months, so it is one character, one city, and four hours of play. Co-op can be a sequel.”
Where you’ve seen it
Portal was kept to a few hours long and sold inside The Orange Box in 2007. A short game built around one idea let a small team take that idea all the way to the end.
Not to be confused with budget
Budget is what you can spend. Scope is what you are trying to buy with it. When they do not match, one of them has to change.