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Here's another idea (the advantage of California time, baby!), a little deeper than my other possibility.

The Capital of the Eternal Century is a game of urban montage & psychogeography based on Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project.

Think of it as a barely-recognizable 19th Century Paris experienced by a flâneur (stroller) idlely but voraciously absorbing the dense details of street life and urban transformations while out on his daily walk.

Time limitation: 10 x one hour sessions (character creation + one for each of the city's nine districts.)
components (from package 1):
Glass (the glass roofs of the arcades that signify the rise of modern consumer culture)
Ancient (the buried city of the river, the sewers, history)
Emotion (each district of the metropolis represents a mood; plus emotion dice in resolving events).

Character creation: don't know if each player will have a character or if they will jointly control one person. Maybe use a phrenological map of the mind, with its 35+ characteristics.

Structure of play: So the character(s) stroll though a different district of the city each day, taking an hour-long walk. I don;t know if the coflicts/ stories/ encounters that are the focus of play should be the character observing other people's lives (which requires framing new characters in each hour session) or getting involved. Alternative: one straight nine hour walk from ealry to later in the day, allowing for time modifiers based on light and mood of streets throughout day.

Resolution: roll 2d6, one represents level of success (or something along the positive- negative axis); the other dice shows one of 6 emotions. The narrated outcome must capture both the success/failure and the emotion. (So there can be tragic successes, zealous failures, etc)

Themes from the Source:
each session/ destrict should involve one or more of the subjects (convolutes: collections of quotes and musings) of the Arcades Project, for example:

arcades, sales clerks, fashion, catacombs, demolitions, boredom, eternal return, barricade fighting, iron construction, advertising, collectors, the interior, baudelaire, dreams of the future, theory of progress, prostitution, gambling, mirrors...


.

So does the flâneur encounter any adversity in the game?

I'm not familiar with Benjamin. The mood seems similar to Baudalaire's The Parisian Prowler, however.

I hate to just give content-less encouragement, but this sounds awesome.

I think it would be more interesting to avoid overt conflict, but you still need something to keep the players' attention. Perhaps giving the players a variety of options for complications that the wanderer(s) might encounter?

- S/he spots a former lover. Does s/he say anything?
- S/he witnesses a minor crime (pickpocketing) being committed. Does s/he do anything?

Maybe there could be something where intervening in the life of Paris, instead of just observing it, changes things completely. And the fun is determining when you will be a part of the workings of the city and when you will simply be an outside observer. Just a thought.

Sounds like you have the color down pat; the phrenological map is a cool idea there.

Gameplay: Ten hours of mostly observation sounds a bit much. What do the players actually do?

I mean I really really really love that resolution mechanic.

Of course, what I would do is replace the GM with the flâneur role, and make the players introduce other characters and conflicts and plot elements that the flâneur would observe. The flâneur could exercise control over player introduction of elements or characters by stipulating what the flâneur pays attention to.

Thus the GM goes on adventures that the players introduce and resolve without his real direct involvement, while he takes his daily constitutional.

Whatever you do, I'm looking forward to seeing this one in a week or so.