Funnypigs Farm Party

People think cats are clever because cats ignore instructions and silk around with an air of urbane pomposity. They think dogs are stupid, meanwhile, because dogs run for unthrown sticks and tumble about like glossy clowns.

In other words, stupid humans behave like dogs, and clever humans behave like cats. So what kind of person behaves like a pig? Look at The Muppets. Look at Townsmen. Amiable enough yet given to bizarre behaviour, intelligent yet entirely without dignity, pigs are the chubby surrealists of the animal world. They are Johnny Vegas.

Funnypigs Farm Party puts one of these creatures in your care and charges you with the responsibility for rearing it. As you'd expect, your pig is a cheerful character that takes great pleasure in wallowing and eating, as well as playing around in the various parts of the farm and farting at farmhands. The aim of the game is to fatten him up for slaughter, and therein lies an aspect of the game's surrealism: it's perhaps the only video game in which the object is to prepare your avatar for death.

Let's take a look at the farm, shall we? Feeding takes place at the sty, as does sleeping and bathing, but while your pig can sleep when it likes, you need to earn credits to indulge in the other two activities. To do this, you have to succeed in three subgames that gradually become available as you reach benchmarks in your weight gain.

The first of these is the dirt game. A range of objects and substances fall from the sky, and you have to position yourself under the friendly globules of mud and water, avoiding the vicious boots and buckets until they eventually overcome you. Depending on how well you do, you get a ration of soap and jam, and you can take these to the sty.

The purpose of the soap is to induce the squeamish farmhand to feed your pig. If you are too dirty, he turns green in the face and backs away, so it's important to stay squeaky. To dismiss the farmhand and return to the farm, all you need to do is fart.

The second subgame is a version of whack-a-mole, in which you press keys on the keypad corresponding to holes through which a series of moles venture an ill-fated glance at the outside world. Striking pumpkins costs you a chunk of health, and, again, the trick is not to beat the subgame but to last as long as you can.

The third subgame is a Dance Dance Revolution-style timing exercise in which you have to press fire as scrolling numbers pass through a box, building enough momentum to propel yourself belly-down along a muddy lane.

To get extra health, you need to sleep, and if you try to enter a subgame without health you'll be sent back to your sty for a nap. As in life, ensuring you catch enough shuteye enables you to do better at tasks, meaning better accumulation of the jam and soap you need in order to fatten up and – God willing – be killed. Sleeping takes time, however, and the degree of your success depends on how well you balance your activities to minimise waste.

Every so often, as your weight increases, your murderer walks past the sty with a carnivorous grin of anticipation, and it is this kind of surreal detail that characterises the game throughout. That, and a consistently high standard of gameplay. Although the range of subgames is fairly limited, they are fun, and the management is well-balanced, making success easy but excellence very difficult to achieve.

The graphics are unambitious but perfectly solid, and the same goes for the music. There are none of the awkward silences that sometimes occur in mobile games, and the sound is well-sampled and fits perfectly with the offbeat tenor of the action.

True, Funnypigs Farm Party isn't as deep as some strategy games, nor as much throwaway fun as many arcade titles, but it achieves a very good semblance of both whilst maintaining its own subtly skillful balance of tactical and tactile demands. It has the feel of a lovingly created title, and this is made evident by the trouble Kaolink has taken to ensure the game captures the broad social appeal that, many believe, is the destiny of mobile gaming's evolution.

For instance, when you finish the game and your pig is shuffled off for slaughter, you receive a score that you can enter online to see how you compare with others.

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