Balloon Headed Boy

There was a boy in our junior school who was nicknamed Balloon Head because he had an unfortunately large head. In hindsight, with the benefit of maturity and the suspicion that he has probably since spent a lifetime hiding his big cranium beneath hats, it's easy to admit he didn't deserve to have "Balloon Head!" screamed at him everywhere he went.

But here we have someone who really does deserve the helium accolade. Balloon Headed Boy doesn't just have a oversized head – his pink, huge skull is a balloon, which he can inflate to various sizes and use to float around his sweet shop-like colourful world.

As you might imagine, someone with a balloon for a head would need air to pump it up. So your first task on entering a new level is to track down one of the pink flowers that fill your air meter. Balloon Headed Boy can still jump around levels and use all sorts of things like moving platforms to get about, but many areas can't be reached without floating to them.

Your actual goal in each of the game's 32 levels is to open the exit door by collecting a number of yellow balloons. Once you've found and grabbed them, the exit unlocks and the next stage awaits. Simple enough, but there are also a different number of blue space-hoppers to collect on each level – some have four, others have 20. You don't have to collect them all to finish a stage, but the game can't be considered fully complete until you have.

Making your task more difficult is the presence of water in each level, which rises quicker than in the English counties worst affected by this summer's exceptional rainfall. Generally, it's more a visual timer that only affects you if you dither but there are some levels that need to be completed with the precision of a bomb disposal expert, militantly seeking out the balloons on lower levels before they're engulfed in water, ending your progress. In these instances, the experience is more puzzle-like, with only one route leading you to the doors, flowers and balloons in the order needed to win.

Aside from water, other level hazards include frogs, which harm Balloon Headed Boy and, oddly, eventually pop his fragile cranium. But you're not without defence abilities, and these pesky amphibians are usually dealt with by pressing '5' or using the thumbstick to dish out a head-butt.

One of the reasons Balloon Headed Boy is such a joy to play is that all the controls are very simple to use. The game is generous about how much accuracy is needed in aspect such as landing on platforms, too, so there's none of the frustration you can get playing this type of experience on mobile.

There are other reasons. Your objectives are very straightforward, for instance, as is the game's design. But that's not to say that for the most part it isn't cleverly done – thought bubbles with pictures (such as water with an exclamation mark if the water is getting close) help guide you through each level, which is a nice touch.

Also pleasing is the way going to the exit door and pressing '5' makes the camera quickly pan to where the balloon you can't find is hidden. Getting it might still be tricky – a crucial aspect if the game is to retain some challenge – but at least you don't waste ages looking for it.

Having said that, the levels are actually quite compact and some are easy enough that you'll finish them within minutes. Some complexity is still guaranteed, though, with certain stages offering doors which take you to underground caves or other parts of the level, and this can take some working out. Especially when the backgrounds all look similar or water threatens to engulf the door you pop out of.

Losing a level in the latter example – unknowingly walking through a door which comes out under the water – can feel both abrupt and unfair, but these levels just require trial and error. Besides, they're so small and short, it's not much of a burden to begin again.

Balloon Headed Boy feels not dissimilar to Sony's LocoRoco on PSP, in that the levels are simple and colourful, and you don't need to collect everything in them in order to progress. The enemies aren't a main part of the game, either; they're infrequent and easy to kill. Instead, the gameplay focuses on jumping, exploring and collecting.

With that in mind, it's a little disappointing to realise the hidden spacehoppers aren't as tricky to find as we'd have liked – sometimes you collect them all without even trying – and this means it's possible to complete the game having found everything, within hours.

Still, we are talking a few hours of highly addictive, puzzle-packed platforming, which is cute, funny and great company. Which, we're willing to bet, are three qualities you can probably use to describe that boy from school nowadays.