Hands on with DS action puzzler Soul Bubbles

If you were a shaman tasked with looking after a precious cargo of souls, which method of transport through dangerous lands would you choose? Personally, we'd probably go with Securicor or, if they weren't available, perhaps try hiring a few burly bouncers from a local agency.

Unfortunately our shaman in Soul Bubbles has gone for a slightly less tried-and-tested means of transportation: encasing them in a not-exactly-fail-safe-sounding bubble. It all seems a little experimental to us – especially when you consider the hazardous levels of clingy vines and hungry frogs you're travelling through. But then who are we to argue with a shaman?

Besides, armed guards would only make Soul Bubbles a very different type of game than it is. Instead of floating, squishing and squeezing your way through organic landscapes, you'd be levelling them with a big truck with a siren on the top. Hardly as sedate.

Not that Soul Bubbles is an exceptionally sedate game. Looking at the gameplay for the first time, which mostly involves moving the shaman's head into position using the stylus tip in order for him to blow the bubble in the direction you want it to go, you'd think it might be a chilled out game that rivals the relatively safe, squishy swirly lands of the PSP's LocoRoco. But while there are some similarities between the two games, Soul Bubbles is more of a traditional game experience, with traditional gaming hazards to go with it.

It doesn't look like your traditional DS game, though, going as it does for a visual style that's like a watercolour painting with bold, cel-shaded outlines. The forest level we played looked beautiful as well as distinctive, and there's little doubt that given the variety of animals and obstacles we encountered in just those few levels it'll be a journey of discovery that evolves throughout.

Anyway, as you navigate your bubble through each stage (which are mostly linear and contained but with the occasional hidden route, similar to the aforementioned LocoRoco's) hazards and head-scratching puzzles block your path. Expect vines that grab at your bubble and drag it downwards, a frog with a long tongue which can pierce your bubble and numerous creatures that are sometimes a help, sometimes a hindrance – such as the monkey that throws you back the way you came.

Fortunately, your bubble isn't completely helpless, flailing around at the mercy of your red-faced and out-of-breath shaman. Using the shaman's assorted tools – namely a bird, elephant and tiger – the bubble can be made bigger, smaller and cut into smaller bubbles. The tiger (used to cut the bubble) is particularly useful for when your bubble is too fat to fit through tiny gaps in a level, for example, and tapping the big cat icon also gives you a tool to cut away vines and attack enemies with.

The bird (used to inflate your bubble further) can also be used to create a new bubble if – tragedy – your bubble is popped and your souls are in danger of drifting away and being lost forever. You simply tap the bird icon and draw a new bubble around the souls with the stylus. Of course, all these quick reactions to events and selecting the right tool for the job is easier said than done. It's like playing Trauma Center all over again – although luckily there's no chance of scalpelling someone to death instead of stitching them up as a result of choosing the wrong icon.

Losing one of the seven souls you're supposed to be protecting could be considered just as tragic, though, and completists will want to get to each end-of-level Gateway Cube with all of them present and correct.

While Soul Bubbles sticks to the most literal translation of a bubble at the start of the game and in the forest level we played, later on – in the obligatory ice level – your bubble becomes more like a block of ice that needs to be rolled. You'll also be able to fill them with different elements, such as gas and water, making them heavier or lighter or just a bit tougher for a particular task.

But it's certainly not all about blowing and floating, and in some of the more LocoRoco-reminiscent sections we played through our bubble was sucked, thrown and generally man-handled around a range of obstacles. There are hidden calabashes to find, as well – secrets hidden behind false walls and unmarked passages – which should lend plenty of replayability should the game's eight worlds and 45 levels not be enough for you.

With games such as Mercury Meltdown, the aforementioned LocoRoco and the recently released Fading Shadows, PSP has been home to plenty of innovative action puzzlers similar in terms of gameplay to Soul Bubbles. There aren't as many good examples on DS, though. So perhaps, when released later this year, Soul Bubbles could plug a bit of a gap. At least for those with the patience to be cutting up and conjoining fragile bubbles and sussing out how to plug gaps in the first place, of course.

Hungry for more Soul Bubbles info? We humbly suggest you check out our interview with developer Mekensleep, then.