Bobby Carrot 4: Flower Power

Rabbits have long suffered the affections of overly-eager children with little concept of the distinction between a fluffy toy powered by batteries and an animal powered by carrots. It would be nice to think that rabbits are in reality much more bitter than their cute exterior suggests, muttering curses about their brainless captors when our backs are turned while quietly plotting their revenge.

After an hour with Bobby Carrot 4: Flower Power, you might be forgiven for thinking that the long-eared ones had finally found a way to strike back at humanity. It is easily one of the most frustrating games in the universe, and yet it's also a mostly enjoyable one.

The game takes place in a series of gardens. It's your job, as Bobby Carrot, to plant flowers in all of the available flower beds, taking as few steps as possible and in the shortest time you can. This is done by simply walking over the flower beds, but you must be careful. Once a seed has been planted, the resultant flower will block your path.

It sounds simple, but these gardens are not ones that Buddhist monks would have a stab at achieving transcendental spiritual enlightenment in, since there are all manner of hazards and obstacles to take into account. They include one-way gates, spikes that leap out of the ground, lily pad boats that ferry you into a permanently stranded position, and blocks that box you into spaces that are impossible to escape from.

In most levels there's also a tractor. In order to drive it, you first need to find a can of petrol. With your vehicle juiced up, you can happily mow down bushes, uncovering gold coins as you go. Once collected, the gold coins can be used to buy various power-ups and extra levels at the local bazaar from the main menu or, if you have enough, you can gamble with them within a mini-game that fires up at the end of the level in order to increase your spoils.

In spite of Bobby Carrot 4's cutesy visage, it's an extremely tough game. You really need to think about your each and every move in order to ensure you don't box yourself in or cut yourself off from flower beds that need planting. The frustration this elicits is substantial, and a little more explanation would have been most helpful.

However, once you get to grips with what each hazard does (and get into the habit of using the free-look option to view the entire playing area before you begin) Bobby Carrot 4 proves to be a rewarding title with plenty of challenge.

There are 50 levels on offer (with more available from the shop) and towards the middle of the stages they start to betray some ingenious design that makes besting some of the more fiendishly difficult ones all the more satisfying.

There is no limit to how many times you can attempt a level, and the game automatically saves your progress. This means you never have to worry about starting from scratch, which does help to offset the frustration somewhat. The scoring is bizarre, though: the amount of steps or time you take doesn't appear to have any affect on the game's outcome.

It's an easy problem to ignore and it doesn't take away from what is a relatively unique puzzler with a bright and cheery presentation. If Bobby Carrot 4 really is a revenge attack by plotting bunnies then it's the kind that the puzzle genre on mobile could do with more of, so go and lavish an annoying amount of attention on that hutch-dwelling pet in the garden.