darkSpyro

I was bored today and ended up making this up. I know this'll never happen, but if it did, it would be amazing.

Basic Gameplay

If you've ever played Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (or any game in the Mystery Dungeon series probably, but I've only played the Pokemon ones), it's basically that.

The main part of the game is played out in Dungeons. These are randomly generated mazes, where the goal is to explore, fight enemies, and get to the next floor. It is tile-based, and turn-based. An important mechanic is hunger. The more you walk, the hungrier you become, meaning you want to get to the next floor as fast as you can. Food items can be found to restore your hunger in the dungeons, but not enough to explore every room. Since food items restore health in Skylanders, I picture a wide variety of food items available. They would all restore hunger, if only by a little bit, but some of them restore health and other status effects, too.

There would be three stats:
Attack: Affects the damage their attacks inflict on enemies.
Defense: Affects how much the Skylander is able to resist enemy damage.
Luck: Affects how often the Skylander dodges enemy attacks, and how often they critical.

Skylanders who have high speed in the main games would have high luck in this game.

May add more later.

Skylanders

I picture this game coming out in the Spring or Summer. By then, most of the main game's Skylanders are already out. This game would introduce two new Skylanders, who are exclusive to the game. These Skylanders exist in the code of the main game, (so you can play as them there) but will not be on the game's poster, or in the game's collection screen unless they are put on the portal.

They are:
Tech Skylander
Too lazy to think of a name
Female Elf Hologram. Attacks by phasing through enemies and giving them an electric shock. She can also shoot lasers.
High luck, medium-high attack, low defense
I'll think of a backstory later.

Fire Skylander
Searadactyl (lame, I know)
Male Fire Pteradactyl. Haven't really thought his attacks through too much yet, but he's mainly physical.
High Attack, medium defense, medium luck
I'll think of a backstory later.

Additionally, any Skylander from the main games can be transferred to this game, although you must reach a certain point before they can become the team leader.

Packs

I picture this game sold three ways: Basic Pack, Portal Apprentice Pack, and Portal Master Pack.

Basic Pack:
Comes with the game and nothing else. Would cost about the same as medium-quality games of its console. Recommended for people who don't play Skylanders, or who already have a compatible portal and don't care to have the additional characters.

Portal Apprentice Pack:
Comes with the game, two figures, and a portal. Would be the most expensive option, at around the same price as the main Skylanders games. Recommended for people who do not have a compatible portal, but already, or plan to, play the main games.

Portal Master Pack:
Comes with the game and two figures. Would be $10 less than the Portal Apprentice Pack. Recommended for people who already play the main games, and have a compatible portal.

The reason the packs work the way they do is that having a portal would be optional. Until a certain point in the plot, you would only be able to play as one of the two characters exclusive to the game. You choose which one you play as at the beginning, and the other is controlled by AI. Early on, you would be able to use a portal, if you have one, to summon other Skylanders to help your heroes. They would be controlled by AI until you reach that certain point in the plot.

You can also gain more Skylanders for your party by playing through the plot, as well as purchasing a random Skylander. Before I get into that, I should explain the main plot:

Plot

You play as a trainee Skylander, training at the Skylanders Academy. You, and your assigned partner, are in charge of investigating these "Mystery Dungeons" that keep popping up all over Skylands. As you do so, you discover that they were created by a machine that the villain (who I have yet to make up) invented, for some reason or another that I have yet to make up.

Once you realize what is going on, the Academy assigns a Skylander to help you. This Skylander is completely random. At this point, you are also allowed to "ask help from a Portal Master" and bring in all of your owned Skylanders via portal. Skylanders brought in this way would have a slight boost to stats compared to their in-game counterpart.

The stats in this game are independent from the console games, but there would be an exclusive hat you can get from competing the game that you could attach to your Skylander and beam it back to the figure. There might be small stats boost, like the Heroic Challenge boost, that could be saved on to the figures as well, that you can earn after you complete the story.

Anyway, you would then go on various missions, and after several plot-related ones you would get assigned another Skylander to help you. If you already have all of the Skylanders, the Academy just recommends a Skylander to take along (but it would really make no difference).

At the end, though, it would just be you and your partner against the final boss. After you beat him, you two become full-fledged Skylanders! At this point, you would be able to decide who is your leader from your entire collection, and will have a lot more freedom of deciding where to go.

Other Mechanics

Dungeons would have various terrain that some Skylanders can traverse better than others.

All winged Skylanders (and other ones that should be able to fly) can fly over water, lava, and pits. However, unless they are of the Fire element, they will take damage over lava. Water can be traversed by Water Skylanders, as well; and lava Fire Skylanders.

There would also be parts of some dungeons walled off. Skylanders who can teleport, or otherwise go underground/through things can access these parts of the dungeon. Usually, there will be some rare and useful items in there (such as hats!)

Probably more but I can't think of any right now.

...

Wow that's long! And of course, never going to happen. But hey, it was fun making it up, so there's that.

This needs to happen. I imagine that you put a good bit of thought into this. Great job!