Yeah I think that works well! I used to play a lot of MtG and there's a cliche of "Life is a resource" and "If you have 1 life or more, you're not dead" and I think exploring that space in lots of different video game genres is a really interesting vein for ideas.
Feel free to tag me if you end up with any more updates or large scale projects that expand from this - would love to see them :)