Pong
Seriously, Pong? Yes, Pong. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts hosts an online version of the classic game (http://www.bafta.org/games/awards/play-pong-online,678,BA.html). The original Pong is credited with kick-starting the commercial video game industry that we know today:
The mechanic: Pong takes its name from "ping pong"—a real-world activity where two players use paddles to bounce a ball at each other across a table with a tiny net. Ping pong was adapted from tennis, after people finally realized that all that running around was too much effort.
Some real-world activities lend themselves very well to video game mechanics. Not quite 50-years old, the video game industry is still very much in its infancy. There is an enormous wealth of fun stuff in the physical world (such as playing ping pong or blowing up tanks) that's waiting to be adapted to a terrific video game mechanic. Are you clever enough to find one of those undiscovered mechanics and build the next Pong?
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