Listening mechanic (non-horror)
A lot of horror games abuses from the art of listening and paying attention to little sounds to jumpscare you with a loud sound; but I'm yet to see a game where this is used outside the horror experience. Is that possible? I think it is. How would a game that uses primarily the listening mechanic be about?
I can see some ideas here. Maybe you love gardening of many plants but you're controlling a blind person and they can only rely on sound. In this game, sounds characteristics would have to be exaggerated, but making it less exaggerated with the game's progression would increase difficulty, as you'd have to listen more attentively to understand what you're dealing with. Friction produces sound, metal sounds like metal, stone sounds like stone and so on and so forth. By making assimilations, there's a possibility to build an alien wildlife and making it an adventure just with a listening mechanic.
A game like this that does not use our increased sensitivity to ear stimuli to terrify us, could be something interesting more as a relaxation game. You'd be doing tasks in a meditative pace that are just hard and diverse enough to keep you engaged. I imagine something like Animal Crossing, but I haven't played this game (I think I should though) with heavy focus on listening for certain sound aspects or mixture of aspects that could tell you something about the thing you're nearby. An adventure game that used this as a driver would certainly be interesting.
THE GORE OF HAVING EARSSSAAAAAAARGHHHHHH