omgketchup

You start with a Space Invaders/Raiden Project type action game. You have a ship, you kill enemies, you get randomized loot from enemies, if you beat the level, you save the loot, you can upgrade your ship.

You also have a 'space base'- essentially a Farmville farm. You build turrets, harvest materials, expand with new buildings that let you do new things or gives new advancement options. You can collect pieces and combine them with your action loot to upgrade your ship or improve your base.

There's the async multiplayer component. You can "visit" other people's bases and attack them using your ship/action gameplay. If they destroy you, they get cool upgrade items when they log back in. If you destroy their base, they have to invest resources to rebuild it so it's harder next time.

TLDR: Think Farmville meets Space Invaders meets Tower Defense. It's still never been done to my satisfaction, and I think the time has passed for a game like that to be lucrative, but man... it could have been so great.

It's definitely possible to "not bash into walls"

You don't always need to have bespoke animations- sometimes keyframes and realistic constraints can get you there. I think Unity is working on a framework for natural human animation.