Not only could you make this in Unity, it'd probably be easier than in Pygame by a good margin.
Game tech is basically universal for zero-graphics games like this, it's 100% "business logic". If you have to fight with the UI/display system for even a moment to make a game like this, then you're probably either using a library without enough features (which, ahem...Pygame, yeah...) or you just don't know the system well enough to be efficient.
So, as someone with considerable Python knowledge but no gamedev knowledge, what would your suggestion be for me?
Specifically, I want to have some fun developing a few game ideas into at least prototypes. I never really had time to do a proper analysis of Pygame, Godot, Unity etc.
Game tech is basically universal for zero-graphics games like this, it's 100% "business logic". If you have to fight with the UI/display system for even a moment to make a game like this, then you're probably either using a library without enough features (which, ahem...Pygame, yeah...) or you just don't know the system well enough to be efficient.