New game Idea!

So I wanted to come up with another new game - new entirely.  A new mechanic unlike anything ever seen before.  Couldn't do it.  Not this time anyway.

But here's what I came up with:




I started the day trying to think of settings for FAITAR to have - I guess the different style leaders will have schools and the schools will have to have various feels to them - Themes if you will.  The theme that comes to mind the most is the Berzerker school.  Since the idea is that the warriors go pretty much out of control, I keep thinking about a school that's trashed and broken.  I will expand on that idea another day I think.

For now, I want to expand on this idea that I thought about on the walk home while trying to think of a new game entirely. 

I started thinking about some things that have been in my mind the past couple of days and kinna just hoped a nice concept would pop into mind.  One did!  Upon the thoughts of explosions, I thought about how chain explosions are generally pretty awesome.  So I started to think about how chain explosions could be implemented.  Puzzle games!  Another genre I've been wanting to play with, now I have something to work with.  At first the thought was 3 bombs in a row causes each bomb to explode in a 3x3 box.  and when each bomb explodes, it could also blow up any bombs caught in the radius of an explosion.  Between boxes would be stones of various explosion resistances.

Decent, but I wanted more variation.  So I started thinking about different ways bombs could explode on a puzzle game manner.  Columns decimated, Rows cleared...  At first I was thinking a laser bombs could be aligned to blow up in a column, and a forcefield bomb would protect Units.  (Units! once again I turned to battle robots for units that would be ultimately expendable.) I'm still thinking about ways for bombs to explode, but perhaps as a reconsideration with forcefields and lasers, they will simply go the directions they are aligned rather than only rows or columns.  Maybe something bigger will happen when 4 or more get aligned.  I also have this idea for a triangle kind of explosion and the potential for diagonal explosions hasn't yet been explored.  I also have this idea for if 4 bombs are matched up in a square like in puyo pop games or tetris, they create a big explosion maybe 6x6 in size.

I also must consider:

What will drive the player to play? High score? driving story? general fun factor? Quest for victory?
Will there be a story? I imagine this to be a battling puzzle game.  kinna like Puzzle Quest and Might and Magic Clash of Heroes.  The first two bejeweled games didn't and still don't have a story whatsoever!
How will the player play?
 -At first I was thinking that it'd be simple switch 2 pieces 1 for 1 like bejeweled and the like-  maybe do that except it could be any two pieces so the player didn't have to make a match with every move.  I figure this way you could potentially save a unit from getting destroyed or perhaps move an enemy unit into harm's way.  I don't know how this would play out - if it'd cause numerous stalemates...  or something - i guess not if each move didnt need to have 3 matching tiles...
Currently the idea is that the two sides will have a set number of units based off of some other factors that aren't yet decided.  The victor would be when one player blows up all the units of another.