Purple Cape

It's a bit of a mystery why more games don't star frogs. Let's be honest - Frogger and Super Frog hardly make a stellar turn out for a species practically invented for the jumping genre.

Based on the evidence of Purple Cape, though, perhaps we should be thankful for the dearth of amphibian heroes after all.

Purple Cape, you see, is a frog-based game almost exclusively about jumping. With a swipe of a finger, Purps launches himself forward with airborne gusto. Swipe mid-hop and he remains defiant against gravity, rarely ever needing to touch the ground.

Surrounding this enthusiastic leaping are numerous jauntily presented stages, packed with all manner of physics-based obstacles - from swinging ropes and tottering platforms to murky ponds and thundering projectiles. There are enemies too, of course, easily dispatched with a flick of your tongue. But whatever the danger though, your goal is simple - get to the end without dying.

Unfortunately, there's a catch. Purps's movement is entirely dictated by infuriatingly unpredictable physics, your swiping only loosely affecting the speed and trajectory of his leap. Sometimes he'll fly for miles, other times merely take a faltering leap back. It's virtually impossible to control Purps with any degree of accuracy, meaning death is a certainty without pure good fortune.

In fact, it's so difficult to react to the game's constant barrage of danger without meeting an patience-testing and often inexplicable end that simply attacking the screen with full, desperate fury is often the most effective strategy for victory. It's not, as you might imagine, all that much fun to play.

It's a bit of a shame, really, as there's a promising idea buried somewhere in Purple Cape - and that's alongside a decent number of levels and some compelling presentation. But it all falls down when it comes to execution, and there's little real enjoyment or reward to be had from a platform game that's so wildly reliant on luck.