head to head
vs
Animal Crossing: New HorizonsvsThe Sims Castaway Stories
Animal Crossing: New Horizons leans Optimization (Pure Optimization); The Sims Castaway Stories leans Optimization (Systems & Chaos).
Animal Crossing: New HorizonsThe Sims Castaway Stories
Axis by axis
Execution1 vs 0
Animal Crossing: New Horizons leans harder on execution: Trivial inputs.
Reads0 vs 0
Even - both lean on reads about the same.
Variance3 vs 3
Even - both lean on variance about the same.
Optimization6 vs 5
Animal Crossing: New Horizons leans harder on optimization: Turnips, layout, and time-routing reward planning.
Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.