I was thinking the same, but then it will probably be hard to get past day 6, because the complexity will ramp up faster

This!

Some time ago I was actually thinking about the exact thing in his statement. I mean even if the problems are structurally almost the same each year, it must be a huge time investment to come up with the stories and give them a little twist each year.

Either Eric should chill out and make it smaller, while still keeping the fun or some rich guys should pay him lots of money to make this his full-time job. The former is probably the healthier path for eric and the game