Epic Inventor Has A Bright Future
The good gentlemen of DIYGamer were well advised to post a link to Epic Inventor, a free-to-play side scroller with a modicum of similarity to the boundlessly popular Terraria. Inventor, though, is all about - get this - inventions and contraptions, and as such takes on a bent that we could describe as something like side-scrolling strategy. The game is currently a little rough, but it contains plans for you to be able to invent an entire town from the ground up, and gives you a robot to fight for you, and to ride around on. The difficulty curve is also a little off-putting at first, because those beasts just keep coming, and take too long to kill. Nevertheless I expect this to have a bold future. It's free right now, so there's certain no cost (other than the precious moments of your life you'll spend with it) to having a look.