In my own experience, i would do #3, then take that and do# 2 after reviewing different #1s

If the code you pay for makes a game that does something close to what you wanted, you then have that to work with and go on.

(I don’t know if this is how things work in the real world so please forgive if it’s not quite right)

Use it like an alpha or pre alpha build, and as a reference for how the coding can be used to do different things but specifically for your project.

It may be a horror show to try and fix someone else’s code, but for someone who doesn’t know already, it would be very useful as a learning environment that was created uniquely for your project, and then you start asking/looking for very specific help

You could then post snippets and ask about anything that you struggling with, or even use AI to explain it(that may be terrible or it may not be, you can let me know lol)

(I’m not a programmer, but i took a class in highschool, 25 years ago and did a couple things with logowriter, and turbopascal)