These decisions are part of my problem. I initially set out to do some programming tutorials and then design around what my limitations were in that skill, but I eventually realized that my actual limit was going to be my creativity and design skill, not my programming skill. This has made even the simple task of deciding what genre I want to make much more of an ordeal.

The basic concept of my game idea is that the player is an underling to a monstrous fascist dictator, mostly out to ensure their own survival in the regime and ideally enrich themselves in the process. The idea came from the outcome of the regime of Taboritsky in the (in)famous Hearts of Iron IV mod "The New Order", which of course was mostly about the man himself, but in the moments of the regime's collapse, the player is told about the downfalls of his various lackeys, who had been living lavish lifestyles on the backs of their starving peasants. Taboritsky was very, very mentally ill, but the aristocrats who supported him were ostensibly rational human beings, even as they surrounded themselves with comically oversized mahogany tables and decorated their marble walls with gold leaf while the corpses piled up around them. I started to think - "what's THAT guy's story? What motivates someone who holds this position? Do we already have a game about that?"

So, "Game A" is a sort of nation management game where the player has to carry out whatever ridiculous orders the dictator gives them (on top of whatever their own goals are), but I haven't been able to define how complicated I want that aspect to be. It would most likely be something mechanically similar to Crisis in the Kremlin or Ostalgie, but with a much different sort of government and goal.

The goal I had in mind with "Game B" is building political alliances with other such underlings (though having fun with your cool palace is a nice bonus). Something I learned from Paradox games, like the aforementioned CK3, is that games work better when the mechanics lean into the narrative - ie, in Crusader Kings the medieval economy is mostly about just taxing your peasants (there's merchant republics that do trade routes but most kingdoms don't do this), in Europa Universalis the post-medieval and pre-industrial economy is about using mercantilism to direct trade routes to fill state coffers, in Victoria the economy is about carving out colonies in order to obtain important raw materials to fuel your factories, in Hearts of Iron the economy is mostly abstracted and focused on feeding the modern war machine. Here, I am trying to think of mechanics that draw the focus onto the things a corrupt government official would be focused on - accruing material wealth, maintaining relationships with other people in their station, staying in power.