AMA Truth or Dare

The true purpose of Truth or Dare is to manufacture opportunities to snog. It's an adolescent ritual whereby you allow people to make you do and say unpleasant things in the hope that a sympathetic opponent will eventually dare you to shut yourself in a cupboard with a girl. It goes like this.

The bottle spins. "Truth or Dare?" somebody says. "Erm, dare. No, truth! Dare! Truth!"

"Okay, truth. Have you ever fantasised about anybody in this circle?"

"I mean dare!"

"Eat a slug."

And so continues the elaborate dance that culminates in us all pairing off, getting married and having children of our own. The thing that makes Truth or Dare work, of course, is the impossibility of telling the truth and the unacceptability of doing the dare. It's a succession of high-stakes dilemmas, the more repugnant (within reason), the better.

So, how has AMA brought this immemorial ritual to mobile? With some thoroughness, it has to be said, but not quite well enough to dispel the question that hangs over it like a right pea-souper: Why?

Each game begins with a summary of the rules. Players should arrange themselves in a circle. Each player has one joker, the function of which is to change a dare to another dare if you don't like the first one out of the hat. Turns are timed, and once the green bar passes into the red, the sluggard loses points.

You can play with up to eight people at a time, and for each of them you have to create a profile by writing a nickname and choosing from one of 17 preloaded faces. Once you've got your circle sorted, you get to choose your theme from Classical, Funny, School Trip, Family Trip, Office Party, and Your Theme.

In the last of these, you get to input your own truths and dares, as well as set the time limits for them. It's a vital addition, meaning in principle that you'll still have something to do once you've exhausted the game's repertoire of more than 400.

The inclusion of themes is thoughtful. Adults in an office and children on a school trip are unlikely to be interested in doing the same things, after all, and many of the preloaded questions are appropriately aimed.

For instance, from the School Trip category: "When was the last time you cleaned your room and why?" Easy, you might think, but the people who go on school trips approach room-tidying far more solemnly than the typical guest at an office party.

If you pick truth, you get the opportunity to change to dare, but the deal doesn't go two ways – if you pick a dare, you're stuck with it. The challenges range from quite difficult to utterly pathetic. For instance, one of the dares is to "Choose someone from the group and wear their shoes for 30 seconds", and one of the truths is to "Name the films during which you cried".

Big deal. I borrow people's shoes all the time, and the only thing preventing me from disclosing what films I've cried at is the sheer number of them.

At the difficult end of the spectrum, there are things like "Pour water on the head of the person you think deserves it most", which is too rich for my blood, but not outside the realms of possibility if put to somebody with more courage than decency.

Some might also struggle with physical challenges like "Do 25 sit-ups". Not me though.

After each truth or dare, somebody gets to enter a rating. If you "Run around yelling 'I love Mike'" with enough conviction, you might earn yourself the full five stars, whereas if you don't really seem to mean it you might get just one.

At the end of the round, everybody's points are tabulated and the person with the lowest score has to do a forfeit (basically, another dare) while the winner gets a little certificate.

It's not a bad realisation of the formula, but the wherefore is still overshadowed by the why. Realistically, nobody needs an electronic device for playing Truth or Dare. Imagination and context will always generate better content than a game, no matter how good it is.

The option to create your own truths and dares addresses this to some extent, but entering text is a laborious solution to a non-problem. Unfortunately, thinking of something and blurting it out is far easier and far more enjoyable. It's a good effort, but Truth or Dare just isn't something your mobile phone can help you with.