So with this whole Amnesia Fortnight thing going on at Double Fine, I've felt pretty inspired to muse over game design ideas myself. The developers at Double Fine came up with quite a few neat game design pitches, some were of course better than others. But watching this whole experience has been really inspiring! It brings me back to the days that I looked at games less cynically and I often liked to imagine how I'd make my own!

I guess in the spirit of Amnesia Fortnight I've came up with my own mock game design pitch. I bring you...

In the far future there is a massive junkyard, a graveyard for millions and millions of the obsolete and broken machines, mechs, spaceships, and robots. Its an ocean of scrap and rust, a hopeless wasteland for our old mechanical friends to fade away.

...but one lone bot won't go down, not without a fight!

Junkyard Punk is an exploration, construction, 2D Platformer starring a lone robot. The mission? Escape the Junkyard! However escaping the junkyard is no easy feat. The walls of the scrapheap are far out of reach and the fabled Junk Guardian watches over the land.

The game is like if you mixed the 2D worlds and exploration of Terraria, the challenge and repeat playthrough of Binding of Isaac, the escape and time pressure of Pikmin, and maybe a bit of Wall-e inspiration for good measure.

Your goal is to survive long enough to build a spaceship capable of flying you out of the Junkyard and defeat the Junk Guardian which can be one of many endgame bosses of varying difficulty.

A few game mechanics include a battery life system that you must find creative ways to keep at a good level, a gradual increasing difficulty as time goes on, an upgrade system where you can build more body armor, weapons, and gagets like jetpacks and grappling hooks for movement, also a weight system that comes into play as you keep adding to your character the more weight you gain, and a complex construction system to build base defenses, repair stations, energy generators, and of course the spaceship.

The spaceship construction is also a complex system in itself. You must balance weight, firepower, armor, size, and thrust so you can fly your way out with as much ease as possible.

The game is also made for replayablilty. After each playthrough you unlock more items to spawn in the junkyard as well as new enemies and bosses. Also multiple epilogue endings depending on how many playthoughs you have won or certain tasks you completed. Try to beat your best time and escape as quick as possible or stick around to find more secrets in the junkyard.

Its a game meant to invoke both challenge and exploration as well as constructive creativity.

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Anyway that's the basic synopsis of a game idea I came up with and I'm actually kind of proud of it. That does sound like a pretty solid game that I'd enjoy. I do enjoy the 2D style exploration and platforming of Terraria, but I find the game kinda aimless. So I thought of the spaceship escape goal similar to that of Pikmin as well as the game getting harder as time goes on. I'm also fond of shorter but more difficult games so replayability would be a huge factor.