brostoevsky

I don't think you know what you are talking about as well as you think you do. By no means is there not "that much to do" from a code standpoint. The core engine is far from complete, they've already mentioned having to drastically rework the collision system for smooth terrain and I suspect other engine features like rendering have plenty of work (whether features or optimization/performance) yet to be done as well as the stuff you mentioned and more. On top of that, every new system they add (skills/experience, more AI systems like NPCs and animals, stealth system, recipes, vehicles, etc etc) just increases the overall complexity and requires careful integration, testing and balancing with the other systems including core engine features. I suspect they still have years of work (or at least most of 2014) before the game can be considered "done" in a non-alpha or beta state, and even then the kickstarter mentions many of the stretch goal features may come post-release. If you're learning to code let me tell you right now that whatever simple html5 or unity game or whatever you are building while you learn is not even a tenth of 1% as complex as a project like 7DTD.