I would disagree, code is as much the product in games as the assets.

Games always have their game engine touch and often for indie games it's a good part of the process. See for example Clair Obscur here which clearly has the UE5 caracter hair. It's what the game can and cannot do and shapes the experience.

Then the gameplay itself depend a lot on how the code was made and iterations on the code also shape the gameplay.