I could imagine a universal paperclips style game where the initial interface was literally just a solid color. That resolved over time as you moved your mouse

I could imagine a universal paperclips style game where the initial interface was literally just a solid color. That resolved over time as you moved your mouse or typed, slowly gaining fidelity and using the randomness of your movements to dynamically fill in some color scheme. (So it would eventually resolve to a game space, but one that was uniquely colored by your actions.) Conway's game of life often starts with nothing. You could pretty easily start with literally just a white screen. I could imagine some stuff that's probably closer to generative art starting from nothing. You could have a sea of noise that you sort of collect into a shape, which eventually becomes your avatar. I think about a game like Warning Forever played pretty well with the concept of starting with (almost) nothing.