Sleep Walker

Originality is hard to come by these days. The best we can hope for is an innovative blend of old concepts that, when properly presented, portray a seemingly original theme. Sleep Walker is a prime example of how ordinary gaming ingredients can be mixed together in the right quantities to create something interesting and entertaining.

The first thing to do with Sleep Walker is to ignore the instructions. They ramble about button presses, jumping, levels and objects without quite explaining the role you'll be adopting in this intriguing little game. You're actually not the sleepwalker of the main title, but rather some kind of guardian goblin whose task it is to ensure the slumbering rambler wakes up safe and sound after a good night's hiking.

Like the immortal Lemmings, Sleepy gets out of bed and aimlessly follows a path of treacherous drops, hazards and obstacles until he reaches the end and wakes himself up. As his unwitting minder, it's up to you to make this path as navigable as possible by any means at your disposal.

This can range from prostrating yourself between ledges to provide a makeshift bridge for the wandering cat-napper to moving obstacles, creating an improvised staircase or even situating springboards to propel Sleepy through the air.

Deciphering the physical enigmas of each level is the real task, while the slowly approaching sleepwalker provides the ticking clock that ensures you solve each mini-puzzle in turn before he comes to harm. The difficulty initially feels quite strict, though once the attributes of the environments become clearer, the game actually increases in accessibility.

The real stumbling block of Sleep Walker is the controls. The game is presented in a clear and concise isometric view – which works supremely well on the mobile screen – but is set at such an angle that the handset's thumbstick simply doesn't correspond to the onscreen directions. You'll find yourself continually trying to fathom which button moves your character in which direction, and as Sleepy gets closer to his impending demise this button-based delay can cause moments of frustration.

While our fingers never really seemed to fully acclimatise to the stilted controls, the larger levels still presented a delightful and readily accepted challenge. The comic visuals and light-hearted frolics of desperately chasing back and forth in an attempt to procure a safe passage for Sleepy are very addictive, and the innovation of the game's premise is equally refreshing.

So a few minor irritations are a small price to pay for the highly entertaining gameplay and tense action of Sleep Walker, and it's impossible not to recommend it to all but the clumsiest of pocket gamers.