As a nerd, I love to see carefully maintained illusions that give a convincing impression of something much more grand going on than is actually happening. Games that push for more and more realism make me wonder why I don't just wander around the real world. Games grounded in realism but augmented with nonrealism (magic, special powers, added knowledge, selective relaxation of physical laws, ...) are fun.

Your "constrained physics" seems to mean adding constraints to make it implementable. I want constraints aimed at making it cool or fun, and implementable. Which is what this project did.

Plus: if you tell me something is smoke and mirrors, I get excited. "Ooh! How did you time the smoke? Oh, this mirror is half-silvered?! That's awesome, I wouldn't have thought of that! What would happen if..."