Bobby Carrot 2: Winterland

Being the avid gamers that we are, we've seen our fair share of daft backstories at Pocket Gamer; we might be forgiven for wondering what some developers get up to in their spare time, such is the level of lunacy present in some games. Then again, occasionally a title will crop up that takes the usual silliness to a whole new level, pushing back the boundaries of common sense until it becomes a barely visible blip on the horizon.

Maybe it's something to do with the translation, but it seems that with Bobby Carrot 2: Winterland, German developer FDGSoft has even lost sight of the blip.

You play Bobby Carrot, rabbit hero extraordinaire, who is tasked with rescuing 'Coco Nut' the red squirrel – the beautiful tree-rodent has apparently been kidnapped by an evil snow princess and bunged into a magic cage. Rather than marching to the castle and demanding the return of Coco, however, Bobby has chosen to grant her freedom by collecting energy stars.

You see, it seems that these energy stars have a few magical properties. The first is the ability to 'keep the heart and body warm'. (Presumably Bobby is still wearing his summer coat or he wouldn't need the extra warmth to survive the harsh wintery environment?)

Coincidentally, the stars also have the power to unlock magic cages. You'd think an evil snow princess would take some care in clearing her dominion of the only means of freeing her captives, but then Bobby Carrot 2 would only be about a rabbit slowly dying in the snow: clearly not the most entertaining concept for a game.

Thankfully Bobby is wonderfully alive, and rather well animated, too. Sporting a bulging belly and stereotypical bucked teeth, he waddles in whichever direction you point him with all the character you could hope for from a cartoon bunny. Leave him standing still for too long and he taps his foot in the most endearing way, frowning out of the screen with his ears drooped.

Each level is dotted with those all-important magic stars, and collecting them is a simple case of walking over them with your oversized rabbit feet. When you've collected all the stars on a level, the exit portal unlocks, enabling you to move on to the next stage.

The first level is simple: navigate Bobby around the fence and collect the stars before heading to the exit. The next few levels introduce you to the spike trap. Trapped squares can be walked over, but after you step off them a set of spikes pops up, rendering that square impassable. Gradually, Bobby is introduced to more and more obstacles over time; they usually appear at the beginning of a level to demonstrate how they work.

Also at the start of each new stage, you can press the fire button to unlock the camera from your leporine avatar, enabling you to glance around the level. This gives you a chance to carefully plan your way through the obstacles, before jumping in and inevitably making a mess of things.

Bobby Carrot 2 thus features a perfectly tailored learning curve. The introduction of new elements happens so smoothly that you're barely aware of how much things have evolved from that first, obstacle-free level. This excellent design also extends to the sound, with a catchy theme tune bouncing along, the perfect counterpoint to the ponderous Bobby.

The game keeps a record of how quickly you finish each level, as well as how many moves you took. This gives you a constant target to try and beat, and makes for excellent replay value with the high-score table tracking how many levels you complete, the total time taken, and how many steps you required to do so. There's also a separate table listing the fastest ten completed levels, providing an additional goal to aim for.

Bobby Carrot 2's only real weakness is that, at a mere 30 levels, it's arguably a bit short. The complexity of the later levels should keep you stumped for quite a long time, though, making it difficult to criticise the game too harshly, and all those targets just mentioned provide a fair dose of replayability.

It sounds simple enough, but it's actually very rare that a puzzle game manages to pull off a steady increase in difficulty with the smoothness and style on show in Bobby Carrot 2: Winterland. Don't mind the silly story – this addictive and oh-so-cute puzzler will keep you coming back to play long after other titles would have left you feeling cold.

Bobby Carrot 2: Winterland

Brilliantly designed levels coupled with a perfect learning curve make Bobby Carrot 2 one of the best puzzle games available for your phone
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Wayne Turton
Wayne Turton
Wayne's childhood ambition was to become a superhero. However, having been told that running round in tights is improper adult behaviour he now spends his days playing video games and watching cartoons instead. Millions of citizens sleep more soundly in the knowledge that he isn't watching over them.