Every once in a while I meet a designer that claims their game occurred to them fully formed and they didn't have to make a change. I don't believe it for a second.https://twitter.com/ReinerKnizia/status/1166628251097284612 …
I really don't think that's what they meant. These are the kind of people that don't play anyone else's games because they want their games to be "original" and then end up making variations on chess/checkers or accidentally inventing already published games.