Danny Danger

Do you remember having to dive to the bottom of the pool after a big orange rubber brick when you were learning to swim?

It's the kind of exercise that in the current claim-heavy climate probably leads to parents taking swimming instructors to court when their little darlings get a splash of chlorine in their eyes.

Like a child with his eyes closed against the peril of pool chemicals, Danny Danger is hit and miss when it comes to grabbing the prize.

The aim of Danny Danger is to dive down into the water as deep as you can.

Death is inevitable, but avoiding obstacles by speeding up, slowing down, or dashing left and right can dramatically increase the depths you can reach.

Contact with any of the game's assortment of fishy foes – which take the form various alien-like sea creatures – spills your blood. This effectively acts as a ticking clock, draining away until you run out of time.

However, even if you manage to slip past said beasties, you'll still find yourself running out of air from the moment you set foot in the water.

Picking up various bonuses as you dive, therefore, is the only way to stay alive. These both top up your health and refuel your oxygen, making longer runs within your reach.

It's also possible to collect credit that you can trade in between levels to increase your abilities – upping your speed, or increasing your oxygen capacity, for instance.

But while this is an acceptable, if basic, model to structure a game around, where Danny Danger falters is in the random design of the levels.

There's simply no way of knowing where both friend and foe are located until the last minute, and given the stages span beyond the confines of your mobile's screen it feels impossible at times to string together a decent run.

Those that do come easily are often the result of luck rather than judgement.

Which leaves Danny Danger in the curious position of being a game that's intentionally light on content, but manages to muddle up the one trope it has a crack at mastering.