My idea in a nut shell: a Minesweeper and action rogue like mash-up. The player has to "flip" tiles, cut down trees, fight wild bears and animals all the while trying to find his son who was taken into the deep woods.
As some may recall I wrote a tutorial entitled 8 kinds of fun: scirra.com/tutorials/434/game-design-8-kinds-of-fun
I will now try to use those principles to recreate a Minesweeper and Dungelot/ action rouge like game mash-up. I'm not sure if this idea is "original" but so far I haven't found anything similar. I think these games will work well together because they are both tile/grid based games. Minesweeper is mostly strategy based and has little luck while Dungelot is completely the opposite.
The following rants which address the 8 kinds of fun is not in order:
Lets start with challenge. Minesweeper at its heart is a tile/grid based puzzle game. However it is very primal and the only challenge factors are time, basic maths and a bit of luck. Because minesweeper is so primal and simple we can add much more mechanics without overbearing the player. Dungelot too is a very basic game if you take away all the different spells (which are fairly generic and does more or less of the same).
We don't want to add too many mechanics or rules in a game as the more mechanics translates to a bigger learning curve the player has to grasp before he/she is able to play the game. By combining the mechanics of minesweeper with Dungelot seems like a good balance for me at lease.
Narrative on the other hand is almost non-existent in both games. So I will make up a theme and story. I thought of a loving father who's son was taking from him. I know its not very original, in fact is every hero + princess story starting from Mario. But to make it a bit more original I will call the father Longbeard Jack (lumber Jack get it?) who lives in the woods with his son. One stormy night his son was kidnapped and taken into the wood. Jack awoke the next morning, not being able to find his son he took his trust axe and followed the trail into the woods. This also addresses the fantasy aspect of the game.
Discovery is already a big part of both games. I.e. "flipping over" tiles to see what is behind it and so this mechanic will be left as it is.
Expression comes as the choices of which tiles to "flip", which ability the player wants to use, which enemies to fight/kill in order to finish the level.
Fellowship will come in the form of a leader board and/or time trial in which players can compete.
Submission can be address by have a no time limit in the basic (or easy mode) game which allows players ample time to think about their moves.
Sensation is more about the graphics, sound and general feed back on screen. The pace of the game depends on the implementation and the difficulty modes which will be implemented in the game at a later date.
DEMO: Left click to cut trees, Right click to fight enemies(animals).
dl.dropbox.com/u/43733346/longbeardjack.capx