Some friends and I let a joke spiral out of control into an idea for a game. I picked up this course to get the ball rolling on this little project so we could have some fun.
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Hi Adam, welcome to the community 
I am very intrigued with regards to the joke and hope to see your idea develop into a game, please do share your progress with us
Will do! The joke stems from this picture:
We joked that the guy on the left is a Belmont from the Castlevania universe, so the game is Castlevania set in New York, featuring that guy as the protagonist. The castle appears in the city (or perhaps is the city!). We were playing around with bringing classic monsters from the Castlevania series into a New York setting and taking New York stuff and framing it in a Castlevania way.
We played around with taking some of the environmental hazards of living in New York and making them hazards in the game (like avoiding the poisonous water that drips from Air Conditioners, or gouts of steam from manholes). An example of trying to port a classic Castlevania monster to a NY setting was making slime creatures look like garbage water—there’s little rainbow swirls in there, like when you see gasoline in water.
We decided to go with a feel (in terms of look and gamelay) like Comix Zone for the Sega Genesis:
It would match the setting. We were really happy about the idea of giving the protagonist a rougher, more realistic fighting style instead of using the whip over and over again. We don’t want anything complicated gameplay-wise like a ton of combos to memorize (something around Ninja Gaiden for the XBOX is a hard upper-limit, in terms of memorizing button inputs). The complexity of Comix Zone’s fighting is just right, I think. Mash the buttons with some variations here and there; some of the choices (like kicking low/high) are handy for certain monster types.
The dream idea, which will be beyond my current reach, is to have difficulty come from rougher, more violent monsters instead of just throwing a ton of beefy monsters at you (which is what the Castlevania games often did). And to have the options available to you in a fight come from context. For instance, the whip is used to keep enemies at bay, and while you’re at a distance; once you’re close, you automatically switch to fists, grappling—a fighting style that can quickly switch between mobility with quick strikes, or slow haymakers for damage/stunning. I’m not sure how to create that kind of feel for behaviors and actions of a creature.
I’m trying to make it to the parts of the course where multiple things move on-screen. By the time I get there, I think I can start implementing these ideas. I’ll start with drawing some stuff and concepts, and then maybe make a super small prototype.
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Sounds like a really interesting idea and one you and your friend have given a lot of thought to, it will be great to see you share some progress on this as you progress through the course and learn the aspects needed to bring this to life. Keep us updated!