Fugitive
Concept
Everyone knows who the fugitive is. That is the problem.
A multiplayer manhunt. A fugitive, or a small fugitive crew, against a bigger force of cops and detectives, and everyone knows which side is which. The fugitive can never fight their way out. It is run and hide, always uphill.
Background
Social deduction games live on suspicion: the lying, the accusing, the vote. Fugitive keeps what makes those games social, a group that has to talk and work together, and moves the mystery. Nobody at the table is lying about which side they are on. The question is which face in the crowd is the fugitive, and there are more hunters than there are places to hide.
You were wrongly accused. The round opens as the prison transport crashes and you get out. From there you have to lose the pursuit, change your identity, pull your evidence out of the hottest part of the map, and connect the dots that prove your innocence before they bring you in.
Heat is a matter of being recognized. Being seen is not enough to give you away. A hunter has to pick you out and call it: Hey, you. Stop. Keep your nerve and you walk on. Run and you start to blink, a suspect with a short fuse. Lose them before it burns down and you are a stranger again; stay in sight and you are made. Every hunter who has made you is a star, and stars are what the hunters spend on backup, roadblocks and the helicopter. Change your look and every one of those IDs goes stale. Your car is part of the description too: wreck it, bail, and run between the houses, and half of what they know about you is left behind in the street. The fugitive sees the whole street. A hunter sees down one line of sight, and has to talk to the others to see more.
The hunters have one job, the arrest, and everything on their side to do it: more players, and NPC forces they can call in. Either side is yours to play, and each has its own experience track. Time survived builds fugitive skill; arrests build hunter skill. The only way to get better at a side is to play it.
Where it stands
The premise, the shape of a round from the crash to the verdict, the two progression tracks, and the heat system: recognition, the blink, and stars as the hunters' backup. The rules of a full round, on foot and behind the wheel. A first playable is under way in Godot: a real town imported from OpenStreetMap street for street, a graybox world to walk and drive, cars to steal and wreck, and host-and-join play built for a remote game night.
What's next
The heat loop on that map, then a full round from the crash to the crossing with a table of friends. After that, how evidence is pieced together.