Once upon a time, I approached a certain AAAA publisher about acquiring a game IP, Super Granny from the mid-2000s, that I used to play as a kid.
Having reached no deal, I opted to innovate on the formula & succeed the original series' feature set from scratch. Introducing, Considerable Grandfather (itch.io page).
Players have described Considerable Grandfather to be engaging by consistently introducing new features as late as the final world & maintaining momentum with a hefty amount of end-game content. Others have poured hours (one player in particular put in 160 hours, to be precise) into 100%ing their profile by beating each level's challenges, finding all of the secrets, & getting all the achievements.
While many mechanics are reinterpreted & serve the same purpose as the inspiration, such as the core mechanics being guiding animals & digging holes to trap enemies (and walk over them- very satisfying), I couldn't stop myself from innovating heavily:
- Boggie Types - Considerable Grandfather is all about rescuing Boggies by guiding them to the Boggie Door. Some Boggies will anxiously jump around the map, some will follow you intelligently, & some are simply invisible.
- Inverter - When the Sewer world is reached, you get to start inverting gravity on all the characters, opening & closing routes. The enemies adjust their AI accordingly & navigate as expected. It's actually lit.
- Item Shop - Between levels, the treats that are collected at each extract can be used to purchase tools (Hammer, Key, etc.) or supernatural powerups (Freezphere, Fireworks) to bring into the next level.
- Enemies - Characters feature a variety of AI trickery. For example, the Molemen track you relatively simply by matching your axis whereas Spooky is fast, invulnerable, & will hunt you down at your exact location. The Ketchup Grandfather is one of the coolest characters- he mimics your movement but hunts you if you stand still, navigating around most of your traps.
The above features are just a few. The Demo has a few levels from the early game, with a couple harder levels from the end of the first world, but the full game has over 100 levels with 6 worlds. I like it personally, but I'm biased lel, being the dev.
In any case, take a look at it ! I might lean toward a more extraction-based entry in the future considering the natural overlap.