Now that 24 hours have passed we have our winner!
A huge thanks to @frezik@midwest.social for suggesting this awesome idea!
A survival crafting game where the tech tree goes backwards. You start in a prepper hole with working water filtration, food sources, etc, and everything is nice. Then something breaks and maybe you fix it. Something else breaks and maybe you fix that. Three things break at once, and at least one of them is going to stay broken. Have to do something more primitive and time consuming.
Eventually, enough things break that it’s no longer sustainable and you die. Game ranks you based on how long you last.
I would also like to thank every person in the comments for making their wonderful suggestions! I've read through every single one of them and all of them are really good!
You can view the game's code at https://github.com/SamLeeway/project-196, which is currently empty at the time of writing this, but every day from now I will contribute code there.
The game currently does not have any name other than "Project 196", so I will probably host a poll when we have at least something playable.
When the game would be playable? Making games ain't easy so it's pretty hard to estimate. I would say in around a week or so I should have a rough prototype if things go right.
Update
Didn't really have much time to work on this this week, so my week estimate is going out of the window. I will not estimate anymore. But I am still working on things, so game will happen. :)
Third person or top down shooter but you push around a shopping card with all your weapon and ammunition.
You can only switch weapons at the cart but if it gets hit it explodes.
This creates a balancing act of having it near enough to run back for a different weapon or more ammo but not to near so it doesn't get looted of blown up. You obviously can't take it up ladders or into ventilation shafts, meaning you have to fight your way back to where you left it with limited resources.
You could have areas where the trolley wheel lock engages, halving movement speed.
the wheel brake goblin
Ok this is actually great. I'm thinking Hotline Miami style combat but with bigger and more open levels akin to maybe Splinter Cell. Lugging the trolley around would probably get annoying after a while so we'll need to make it the main gimmick and give it some upgrades. Speed up while pulling, maybe an auto tether that will have it follow you around to a limited extent without having to lug it. Being able to hop in the trolley to stealth at the cost of being able to move or shoot. Final trolley upgrade near the end of the game can give it a shitty little auto turret and shield and let it assist you in some point defense rushes before the final boss.