Skabooki

You don't have to believe in something for it to be real. Magic might be hard to believe, but it's right here between the blocks and bytes of Skabooki.

As a result of spirits bent on breaking the enchantment that binds a voodoo doll to the daughter of a power witch doctor, you must preserve the doll Skabooki by solving a series of block-based puzzles. Skabooki, which protects the Oonaki's progeny from harm, has to be guided through complex puzzles featuring disappearing blocks, teleporters, and slippery ice.

Dispelling each puzzle is a matter of tapping groups of coloured blocks in order to move Skabooki to the exit at the bottom of the screen. The doll can't move on its own - instead, you nudge it along using arrow blocks, ice slicks, and teleporters. Eliminating blocks from the puzzle enables Skabooki to access these special blocks, effectively propelling the burlap sack cutie to the finish line.

Blocks of the same colour can only be cleared in groups of three or more, a tap dissolving them from the screen. Gravity plays a role, however: as blocks are removed from the puzzle any objects above descend to fill in the empty space. In this way, you're able arrange blocks in such a way as to guide Skabooki to the end goal.

Things get pricklier than Skabooki's pincushion backside when you confront crazy levels featuring multiple teleporters, ice blocks, and extra arrow blocks. While early levels only provide you with the elements necessary to solve the puzzle, later stages add superfluous materials to throw you off.

A few nonessential arrow blocks pointing in an obvious direction, for example, can kick you off course until you realise three attempts later that the solution isn't nearly so obvious.

It sounds like a curse, but such ornery game design is nothing less than a blessing. Skabooki encourages you to think before tapping the screen. Puzzles are never too difficult, but they press you to contemplate how to tackle a puzzle before acting rather than playing by trial-and-error.

Bonuses are doled out for completing puzzles quickly (a red candle melts away the seconds in the lower-right corner), as well as clearing all blocks from the screen. The points awarded for these feats add to your stock of extra lives, so it's worth the effort.

For each failed attempt at solving a puzzle, you lose one life; lose them all and your point total is reset. In other words, thinking about how to tackle a stage is preferable to winging it.

Achievements also chronicle amazing feats, though only within the game itself. Skabooki does integrate with Facebook, but we'd love to see incorporation with OpenFeint to standardise its achievements and bring other social networking features into the mix. A custom level editor and the ability to share puzzles via an online network would increase the game's mojo.

Not that this well styled game isn't already spellbinding. Wrapped around its inventive puzzle play is a brooding sense of style that puts the musk of the bayou at your nose and the dark, seedy alleyways of the French Quarter at your back.

Though it's not the most varied experience from beginning to end, Skabooki will cast a spell on you thanks to the care that went into crafting its thought-provoking, fantastically unusual gameplay.