After the initial pitch and feedback, we as a team were thinking. You as the player are essentially just moving around. In a way it is a dungeon crawler. Along with the scope being too big was the fact that this game wasn't a unique touch experience. It would be better to play this type of game on a computer or with a controller. So we decided to create a new game.
An issue with the Thief like game, was that its mechanics were all over the place. There was no hook or interesting core idea of the game. You walked around. Avoiding guards while stealing valuables. I also thought that there was no structure. If you were to tell someone about this game and explain how the process of completing a level was achieved, you couldn't really. It would just be something like "sneak around and steal stuff". It just didn't sit right with us after the pitch feedback.
The new game we designed though, is much better in our opinions. You the player, are the eyes in the sky, the hacker behind the computer (tablet in this case). You have hacked into many billionaire mansion security systems, and your accomplice is to go in and steal a valuable. First, you need to plan out their path, tracing it out with your finger as when they go in, you cannot control them. While doing that, you will want to observe guard patrol patterns. Like the thief game, these guards have vision cones. Now, when your accomplice enters the house, it is up to you to cause distractions for the guards. Ringing phones, flickering lights and turning on house hold appliances to attract the guards attention away from their patrol and your accomplice's potential route.
This game has core idea of distraction. Distract the guards while your accomplice burgles the house. It has mechanics from there, expanding out from it, still connected. Like drawing the guards attention in many ways. It is also built for a touch device. You draw out your accomplice's route and tap on distractions to trigger them. We believe that this idea is much better than the last in both design and scope.