Horror-adjacent game where you have to play a series of minigames in various apps on an in-game phone to progress through levels(?). Games are fairly simple, time-wasting things, but they require checking back in with them sometimes.
Every so often, an ad opens in the minigames/windows (or a separate app opens unexpectedly and begins playing it). If the ad plays to completion or you interact with the ad accidentally beyond closing it, you get jumpscared and it’s game over.
The main mechanical difficulty is in closing the ad/tab while fumbling with the fake touch-screen/junky software and hardware of modern smart phones. Maybe if you move too fast the screen rotates, or you open the app windows where you can close apps instead of just turning off the ad at the source. Maybe you turn down the sound, which makes it harder to notice if the ad is playing in the bg. Hell, maybe you open the wrong app and have to backtrack/shuffle through apps to see where the ad is playing in the first place. And if you hurry and accidentally click the ad? You’re fucked! So you’d have to learn how to navigate with the phone and deal with all of these idiosyncrasies. Maybe after each level, there’s a “software update” that makes the phone buggier in response to what players are doing. Call the game “Advent” or something.