Elemental Tiles: Paper Prototype

I haven't come up with a catchy name yet; for now I'm calling it Elemental Tiles.  It's similar to the game 2048 which you can play here:  http://2048game.com/  2048 is a very simple game in which you slide numbered tiles around on a board and try to put matching numbers together.  The catch is, all the tiles move at once and they move in the direction you press until they run into a wall or another tile.  Also, new tiles are constantly appearing at random.  (Play it for a minute or two; you learn quick what it's all about.)

Elemental Tiles has similar mechanics, except instead of numbers, the tiles show elemental symbols for things like water, earth, fire, plant, lightning, etc. and different tiles react in different ways when they come in contact with each other.  For example, when a fire tile touches a plant tile, the plant tile burns up and becomes another fire tile.  When a water tile touches an earth tile, the water disappears and the earth becomes a plant tile.  Etc.  Part of the game will be learning what different tile combinations do.

Below is a simple animation showing what a round of gameplay might look like, followed by an explanation of each frame:

1. The start of the round.  We have 1 fire, 1 water, 1 plant, and 2 earth tiles.
2. If we're playing on a device with a touch screen, you slide your finger anywhere on the screen in the direction you want the tiles to move.  So sliding our finger up causes all of the tiles to move up until they hit something.
3. The fire moves up to touch the plant and the water moves up to the top boundary.
4. The fire burns the plant tile, which disappears...
5. ...and is replaced by another fire tile (essentially, the fire is spreading).
6. Now we make our second move, and swipe to the right.
7. The tiles move all the way to the right until they can't move further, bunching up against the right boundary.
8. When fire has nothing left to burn, it dies.  Earth doesn't burn, so both fire tiles disappear.  At the same time, the water tile is now touching an earth tile.  Both tiles disappear...
9. ...and the earth tile is replaced by a plant (the water soaked into the earth and caused a plant to grow).

And so on.  In just two moves we went from five tiles to only two (though just like 2048, other tiles could be randomly popping up during each round).  There could be different playing modes with different objectives, the simplest being to play for as long as possible without the board filling up completely.  Other modes may have specific goals, such as removing all of a certain type of tile while keeping others in as few as possible moves.

Elemental Tiles is meant to be an easy game to play and would be a good candidate for mobile devices.  It will have a simple look and feel, with the tiles and game board appearing to be made of stone and stone-like sound effects as tiles slide around and bump into each other, as well as other sound effects that match different element interactions (fire burning, water splashing, etc.).