Cosmo Kid

As with many iPhone genres - notably line-drawing - the story of bouncing or jump games has been one of a huge initial success followed by a glut of arguably better games that commercially flopped.

It seems iPhone and iPod touch owners only need a singular example of a genre, and that poster child is created virally rather than by critically acclaim.

This is not great news for new UK start up Pear Comp and its excellent Cosmo Kid.

Late to the party created by Doodle Jump, it's innovated in terms of design and looks excellent thanks to the various stylistic level themes it introduces the higher you jump.

The basic mechanic of the game follows the trajectory of the cosmo kid. The action starts with him being held upside down by a big Monty Python cartoon hand.

You're asked to draw an arc (officially called a 'swish') on the screen with your finger: a move that will trigger his fall, as well as providing the means for uplift - always assuming you draw the arc in the right place to stop his descent, of course.

As we've seen in other recent iPhone games such as Parachute Ninja and Wire Way, the arc you draw acts as a piece of elastic, reversing his orientation and pinging him skywards.

The angle at which you draw it and height from which he falls both affect his upwards flight in terms of direction and velocity. Cosmo kid also bounces off the sides of the screen, but it's the various level items he comes across that are the real driver of gameplay.

Some are permanent, changing the arc of cosmo kid's motion while remaining in place. Others disappear when he collides with them, but all have the potential to result in the kid falling off the bottom of the screen, either because you can't draw an elastic string in time or the right place.

Then it's Game Over, although you'll get the option to tweet your height, and compete on a wider level with country and global high scores recorded.

Other items act as power-ups. Collect three pinkukukka for a boost - the screen is filled by a huge rocket-powered cosmo kid who zooms higher for a couple of seconds - while nukukukka slow cosmo kid down for a while.

Perhaps best, however, are the tahtikukka, around which cosmo kid briefly rotates like a moon before being flung back, upwards into space at a high rate of knots. Neat level design often means you can take a break as he whizzes round an entire sequence pinball-style.

Indeed, even without the rotative abilities of the tahtikukka, there's definitely a pinball feel to Cosmo Kid. This makes the game very dynamic, but also makes it relatively hard to play. Last minute changes of direction can leave you struggling to get your line drawn in time, no matter how vigilant or quick with your fingers you are.

That the game isn't too frustrating is testament to the pleasure of the basic bouncing mechanic, as well as the excellent art, and the one-more-go-ability these games inherently seem to possess.