Hands-on with Billy Goat Entertainment's Outfoxed for iPhone and iPad

Anyone who sampled Belfast-based Billy Goat Entertainment's first iPhone and iPad splash KnightyKnight will know that it's a dab hand at polished visuals and witty dialogue.

The outfit's latest effort - the cunningly named Outfoxed - touches many of the same bases. But where KnightyKnight seemed pitched to fill that spare five minutes, Outfoxed is a far more lengthy - if just as jovial - adventure.

Playing as the game's currently nameless fox, you have to scurry into farmland, pick up chickens from a pen, and take them back to your pot for your dinner.

Standing in your way - or rather chasing you around the grounds - are several adversaries. During my hands-on, I encountered the first three: a housewife armed with a knife, a farmer packing a shotgun, and a pack of hounds eager to chase my tail.

Each one naturally offers up more of a fight than the last. At the easiest setting it appears possible to avoid contact altogether, ducking in and out of the pen rather than taking your enemy on.

Out of the frying pan...

If you're looking for a bit of breathing space, Outfoxed enables you to switch to first-person in order to take out said foes, firing eggs in their direction to take them down.

Of course, every downed enemy is replaced by another, tougher enemy.

It's an approach naturally designed to keep you on your toes, and although Outfoxed currently takes place on just the one map it never starts to stagnate.

As well as the option to head on over to the duck pond to pick up some ducks, there will also be a variety of additional play modes on offer, which - we were told - will be added to through future updates.

Outfoxed already looks the part. The studio's background in 3D animation is evident, and although I was told the build I saw was lacking a few vital textures the game already boasts slick 3D graphics that would put larger outfits to shame.

For players in Northern Ireland, too, the game will also feature the dulcet tones of someone rather familiar.

The vulpine star of Outfoxed will be voiced by sports commentator Jackie Fullerton. Having listened to samples of his vocal talents recorded for the game, I can report that he's set to add a comical tone similar to the one seen in KnightyKnight.

Outfoxed is due to hit the App Store in February, with Android and Mac versions due later. Expect fresh screenshots up on site shortly.