Scaling mechanics, no gameplay yet
basically you're playing $thing at a given level and when you beat it the game zoom out
at each level there is a new mechanic added or existing mechanic slightly altered
in my head it wants to be a micro-tbs or puzzle game
After scaling up 8 times (at the 9th level) you've reached the full gameplay portion which (ideally) would continue to feature chains of 9, groups of 9, etc
Possible scales:
Room -> Building -> Street -> Neighborhood -> City -> State ->Country -> Continent -> World
A general graphical motif for 9x would be to have a 3x3 set of squares which you must "take over" as part of the game. After doing so, the squares zoom out to reveal that they make up just one of a larger 3x3 set. Gameplay continues in this larger scale, with perhaps one additional twist every scale up or two.
The Giver
Single Player Real-Time Strategy (I was seeing this more turn based than real-time)
The gameplay component ("$thing") in question is an infection game. To give this a positive spin, I propose that the premise be "spreading emotions and culture in an apathetic world", like Lois Lowry's "The Giver". The high level story is that in a gray, quiet world whose people are devoid of emotion, a young girl discovers an old piece of culture (i.e. a love song or a poem), and begins spreading it to people around her, starting from her room (see scale proposed by Falun above). You control all the "emotional" people in this Real-Time Strategy game, trying to help this civilization rediscover emotion. Your enemies are the authorities (a twist starting from the "Neighborhood" level), who do not like such displays of disharmony.
"Culture" is the currency of the game.
The "emotionals" in this game can do several crucial actions:
I think it should be important to avoid conflict. The authorities can bring fear that would cause the emotionals to return to being emotionless.
Graphically, "cultured" areas are colored, "emotionless" areas are gray. Maybe we can depict people as simple shapes. The "emotionless" are gray question marks. The "types of people" who produce culture differently (see (i)) can be depicted in different colored simple shapes, such as green triangles, red circles, etc.
Blake and Falun Figuring stuff out
Adding complexity to mechanics at higher scales could be done by introducing new types of culture that have different impacts on people:
Music, Dance, Art, Theatre, etc
Potential "The Giver" progression