Well Billy Basso was hugely inspired by the Handmade Hero series and went on to make the critically acclaimed Animal Well because of it. That's enough of a win for that series in my eyes.
Animal Well is a great game, there's a lot in there and I appreciate it when a game is deep rather than big but I don't see much connection there. Maybe it's like how "Maze: Solve The World's Most Challenging Puzzle" (a book I disliked immensely) inspired Tonda Ros to make "Blue Prince" a game which I enjoyed tremendously.
