Doing chores... making it fun?

This thread is meant as a record of design progression for me. I encourage anyone with thoughts to participate but I will probably be long winded, so I don't expect anyone to follow everything here completely.

Chores!

This is just an idea for a light euro style game that I've been toying with for the past few days. The idea is that each player has access to the same set of 10 chores. The game is played over 5 turns (representing the days of the week.) The player who does the most cleaning during the week gets the keys to the car on Friday night. Along with the 10 chores players can choose to do their homework and play video games. Each player has their own set of 12 cards. I imagine that one player places their car keys on the table at the beginning of the game and the winner gets to grab them at the end of the game.

Players choose their 5 chores blind at the beginning of each round. Each chore is numbered and the number of each chore is called in sequence so that players act simultaneously. If multiple players choose the same chore they get into a fight about it. Players may concede the chore or choose to play a card from their hand to try to win the fight. If the players fight, the loser gains a grounding point on the grounding track and the winner does the chore. Both players total amount of chores for that round is therefore reduced by 1. Basically, the more the siblings fight the less they get done. If your grounding track is ever full you are grounded and lose the game.

The game has two main playing areas: the player's bedroom/score card, and the house (which consists of tiles for the lawn, driveway, family room, kitchen, sink, and floor). Each area within the house, as well as the car, can become dirty. Dirt is represented by brown cubes (although I've been using the brown discs from Agricola) Players score by cleaning up around the house. The lawn is scored using green cubes as they are scored differently (worth 3 points each instead of 1). Cubes within the sink are likely to spill out into the kitchen, cubes on the floor are likely to end up cluttering the family room.

Within each player's bedroom they have several personal scoring areas. The dresser is where you put your clothes when you do laundry. Items in the dresser are scored at 1 point each for a total of 7 possible points. Your bedroom itself is scored negatively based on how many dirt cubes and laundry cubes are laying about. Your hamper is not scored, as it is basically scored as neutral ground between clothes laying on the floor and being in the dresser. Your console is where you place video game cubes. These are scored high (not because your parents are rewarding you, but because you got away with it while your sibling didn't) but may be used against you if you lose a fight.

Also on each player's scoring area of their player mat there is a pet bowl, clean up, and lawn area. Clean up is where all cubes goes that are picked up during the game with the exception of the lawn. This enables each area to be scored easily and separately.

Cards in the game serve many purposes. As a randomizer for weather, cards are used to determine whether it is sunny or rainy (with rainy days being more likely in the game). Players may only wash the car or mow the lawn on sunny days. Cards also determine how messy rooms get and which chore will be disallowed for a particular day.

The phases of each round are:

I. The Wake Up Phase:
One player selects a random card for the weather and add the weather token to the DotW track. A black or yellow disc may be used on the DotW track to represent the weather (sunny or rainy).
One player selects a random card for the disallowed chore du jour
One player selects a random card for the level of messiness in the family room
One player selects a random card for the level of messiness in the kitchen.
*(Complication: This game is initially a 2 player game, a 3 player variant may complicate this phase)

II. The Mess Phase:
Players dirty up the house and their bedroom according to game rules.

III. Chore Selection Phase:
Each player choses 5 of their remaining cards. At this point other players will know which cards are not in your deck and can use that information when selecting their own cards.

IV. Clean Up Phase:
Play starts with a player announcing the chores in numerical order. If no players have a particular number it is skipped. If players have the same number chore then they will enter the fight sub-phase.(Exceptions are cleaning your room and doing your homework which any player can do without fighting).

IV A. Fight Phase
Players take an additional card from their hand and play it for numerical value only. The player who plays the highest card wins the fight. If two players play the same card neither player gets the chore and both players gain a grounding cube. If one player plays a lower card than another that player gets a grounding cube. The player who wins the fight does the chore, the loser gets to take another card from the deck of cards that they did not pick at the beginning of the round. This will–to some extent, hopefully–prevent a runaway leader scenario.

VII. Bedtime
If either player has been grounded that player loses the game. In the case of both players being grounded during a fight, the game ends immediately and is scored based on current standing.
If the weekday track is on Friday the game ends and is scored.