By way of encouragement for anyone who had a great idea but can't write a lick of code: you know more coding than you think. It's nothing more than "if you do this, I do that"

Start with paper. Cut out the widgets and place them as the app. Then, think of a task, what button, should it change? Swap a different colour copy widget. Popup a select? Make one, cut it out put it wherever. Keep going, take notes, all the possible paths and conditions. All just paper and notes.

In 1986 I was approached by someone who had done just that, I received a box of paper bits and rules. They'd grown up in a stadium, it was their language. Coding was easy, and our game earned a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Toronto.

Want to know a secret? Coders generally don't have killer app ideas. Most hunger for well-thought-out worlds to create. Code is their poetry, not what it does.

I only need an idea with a reliable but Portand-reasonable income, not a grand slam. :)

Well, consider mst3k, vampira, a long list that now has grave mood rings, ALL started with no budget, talent or plan, on community cable.

Today, wouldn't that be MakerTube? All you need is your phone, cheesey stupid costumes that declare a larger purpose, and whatever movie you can show. Worst case, it's your portfolio.

for the time being I also have a mortgage and live in a capitalist hellscape, but if one were to build a fairly basic web/mobile game interface over ActivityPub, where everyone watched a video together in real time amd and played along, what program language am I looking up for that?

I'm not sure as I'm not a coder, but perhaps @gabek can help as they are the creator of OwnCast (the Fediverse's alternative to Twitch).

By the way, another popular suggestion has been a film/TV version of https://joinbookwyrm.com

I don't know of any suggestions box but if there's a good idea I can try to give it a shoutout?