Totomi (iPhone)

They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but have you ever been to Bath? I'm pretty sure those Georgians knocked that up in a spare weekend. Regardless, the mantra remains: you can't make something in no time at all, though Totomi comes pretty close.

The game charges you with stacking up totem poles in order to take over for the Rain God, who conveniently decided to go on holiday.

While the Rain God tans in the sun, his constituents bake under the torrid heat back home. By the magic of stacking animal totem blocks on top of each other the world is somehow made right.

Play is all about stacking. You're given three spots on which to construct your totems. Animals, food, and other assorted items appear at the top of the screen and can be placed on any of the three bases with a flick of a finger.

Success is all about where you choose to place each object, each one interacting differently with whatever sits directly below it.

Totomi is surprisingly complex, building upon this simple concept with dozens of different blocks and unique ways for them to interact when placed on top of one another.

Gaining height on the totems comes from matching animals together; for example, stacking one hippo on another hippo, which then breeds more hippos. You can also pair up animals that are friendly, such as elephants and hippos, which then adds a handy log between each animal, again building it higher.

Raising a totem is your first task, yet you also have to clear and collect them. You do this by placing a non-matching, unfriendly animal on top of a built-up totem.

There are also other goals, such as encouraging animals to eat a set number of other animals. Lions, cats, mice - they're all part of the food chain. All of them can eat and be eaten by those quite literally above them.

As you add to the stacks, more animals and objects pop up along the production line. In Story mode the clock constantly runs down, but can be topped up every time you add 50 blocks to the height of your totem.

Conversely, time is added to the clock as you level up in Arcade mode; the pressure cooker works in a slightly different manner.

Either way, Totomi is the kind of game where you don't really have time to stop and think for too long, and it goes much deeper that it first appears.

For those who are really skilled and want to make it past the first five or so levels, planning where you should place each animal is key. It can mean the difference between flying through the level in a matter of seconds and struggling as the clock winds down.

This is the kind of game that could take months to fully conquer. The bright colors and cute animal totems belie a challenging puzzler.

There's a risk in that complexity, however, that Totomi rains on its own parade, being too complicated to entertain the quick fix play that it seeks to offer. But Rome wasn't built in a day and Totomi isn't learned in a minute, both need time to show their greatness.