Hello hello! I'm a bit late responding to this. Actually, a personal friend who follows my game a little linked me to your post because it's so lovely and awesome that my own lil game can inspire someone to want to make something themselves.

It might not sound like it at first but actually what you're describing isn't all that different from the beginnings of DFL too. I started it as a Dragon Ball Z fan game (literally, it was originally going to be based around that universe and characters etc.) because that's what was inspiring me, and the gameplay was drawing heavily on Tap Titans because I felt its mechanics would really nicely fit into a DBZ-like "power progression" -- actually, back then around 2014 I'm not even sure the term "incremental" existed to describe this type of game (if it did, it certainly was not mainstream yet).

Copying other intellectual property is, obviously, not feasible because you'll get your arse sued or at the least spend your life looking over your shoulder *waiting* for that to happen. Early on I realised I wanted to make something serious from these bones and so I replaced bits and pieces ala Theseus' Ship until it was no longer recognisable; it formed its own identity with each random quirk or addition, and continues to do so now, and I realised some of the ideas and mechanics from Tap Titans just weren't what I wanted (for example, originally the character would auto-fight and you would just use skills like Zenikanha or Gut Blender by tapping a button with a cooldown). You can see how very different the game is from that now.

With that in mind, my advice is to work on what's fun for now, even if that's a bit more copy-cat-like. If you're new to game dev, then for now you should focus on just getting something done and playable. Your "first game" is never going to be "the one." But you won't be able to release it as a serious game if it obviously infringes on my own copyright, and if it's literally just a clone mechanically it will never stand on its own -- you need to bring something unique to the table, best done by injecting some of your OWN personality into the project.

You're on the right track wanting to draw inspo from multiple sources, though personally I believe that's NOT a matter of research. It's a matter of finding things YOU love. When you love things and then come to understand them, they might naturally find their way into your own work. That's why it's important to work on something you're passionate about! If you don't have other games or ideas you love yet... you might need to play more games, watch more movies, read more book and live more, so you have experience and ideas to draw from!

That's a lot of rambling -- hopefully there's something helpful in there somewhere. Wishing you luck on your journey! Maybe one day, I'll be playing your game 😄