Here’s an idea for a 5 minute puzzle game:<p/>

There’s a grid of squares. You have control of the sun, and you are given some fixed number of turns. Each turn you pick a square to focus the sun on. The object of the game is to grow plants.<p/>

Rules:

  1. Wherever you put the sun, plants grow. The sun's beam hits several squares at a time, not just one.
  2. Wherever plants grow, clouds form above the plant. Clouds partially block sunlight, and they can rain when they are large enough.
  3. Wherever sun hits, the ground slowly becomes dry. When a cloud rains, it makes the ground wetter.
  4. Plants already in existence grow without sunlight, but much more slowly.
  5. Nearby clouds attract each other, and will merge if they collide.
  6. In the absence of outside forces, small clouds slowly drift towards the edge of the world and large clouds drift towards the center.
  7. When the sun hits part of a cloud, the cloud is drawn in that direction.
  8. Points are determined each turn after you apply the sun. Players get a fixed bonus for new growth, and existing plants give greater point values as they expand. All point values are modified by the wetness of the ground that the plant grows in.

After the last turn, all the points are added up and score is totaled.</p>

If well executed, I think this could be a lot of fun. One of the important things to the immersion is that the plants should be highly organic – you don’t get the same plant formation twice, ever. Also, the controls should be tight and responsive (but that should be a given). Clouds should be semitransparent and also pretty organic. The only thing to worry about the ground is that you should be able to tell wet from dry ground.