Three slightly related game ideas. (Didn’t feel like making three files for these—yet the ideas are too separate to really combine I believe.)
@IDEA: In The Nile / Croconile. I just feel like the nile is an amazingly useful setting for a game. We can just do one horizontal blue strip of “river” from left to right on the screen. And then gameplay purely happens on that river and its banks, transporting goods, dodging crocodiles, building pyramids, steering your boat, etcetera. Could be incremental, could be management, could be a kind of tower defense (“don’t let enemy ships reach the end of the nile”), could be friendslop (coop or competitive).
The fact you have this single straight river as the center piece is easy to make and makes the gameplay easy to read. It also naturally creates gameplay because it’s just a straight line and things can’t just go around each other or sail somewhere else.
@IDEA: Merchant. A simple game about traveling from place to place, selling and purchasing wares, and trying to get slightly richer each time with the correct trades (and cheap/clever transportation).
@IDEA: Battle of the Bay. I feel like simplified, cartoonish sea battles have lots of potential for an action-packed game. Just the simple strategy of moving boats into position, creating blockading lines, taking current and wind into account, etcetera.