Platformance: Castle Pain

Time was, a title in Platformance: Castle Pain's mould would have been plastered all over the front of the magazines straddling the shelves at your local newsagents.

In amongst the half penny sweets and the Toffee Crisps would have sat gaming rags transfixed with its stellar graphics.

The latest issue of SNES-Sational would have blown the game wide open in its tip section, all while Mega Drive Monthly dedicated needless column inches speculating about a possible port.

Those were the days when Platformance: Castle Pain's pixel-perfect playground would have been sapped up willingly by a generation of gamers fostered on 2D platformers, each one centred around one hard and fast rule: time your jumps perfectly.

Medieval marvel

Platformance: Castle Pain – with an obvious, but not off-putting nod to Castlevania – makes no attempt to hide its roots, and within seconds it's clear why. Magiko Gaming's adventure is easily one of the best-looking games on Windows Phone 7 to date, brilliantly fusing its retro styling with a soundtrack that sounds like a Kraftwork album morphed with a Shakespeare stage play on BBC Two.

Though in no way offering competition to GPU pushers like Infinity Blade and Real Racing 2, it would be hard to argue that, in its own way, Platformance: Castle Pain isn't just as stunning.

But Magiko's ode to all things old doesn't stop with the game's presentation. The adventure itself, which charges you with taking control of a knight seeking to rescue a captured princess, touches base with almost every 2D platformer you can think of.

Success is all about timing your jumps, with the game's one and only level littered with hazards that can reduce you to a pile of blood and bones.

Cryptic castle

The game's medieval setting comes with everything from spikes and fireballs to fire-filled death pits. Successfully navigating through them is a case of learning through doing – though checkpoints make the initial run of restart after restart easier to bear.

Platformance: Castle Pain also gives you the ability to zoom in and out of play, letting you see exactly what's required to get to the finish line. This gives play a Canabalt feel: the game naturally encourages you to complete it as quickly as possible, but, should you fail, you're still greeted with a message detailing just how far you got.

There's no time to stand and take in the level in all its wonder, however. Following you almost from the start is a huge Pac-man like ghost, who basically acts as a clock, slowly working his way through the level once activated and killing you on contact.

Should you get stuck on a particular part – and, whatever skill level you play at, that's fairly likely – with the ghost in close proximity, it's essentially only a matter of time before it's game over.

Out of control

The problem is, often such fumbles aren't your fault.

The controls – a virtual thumbstick on the left, and an invisible 'jump' button on the right – have a major part to play here. Because the thumbstick is roving (as in, it appears wherever you touch the screen), all too often it reads your attempt to jump in a particular direction as two separate inputs, the end result being the thumbstick repositions itself and your leap misses its mark.

It's a stiff setup that does not fit well with the experimental nature of the game's sole level, in truth. Each and every fresh challenge has to be evaluated on the spot, successfully negotiating much of Platformance: Castle Pain a question of making it up on the fly.

That would be fine on its own. Indeed, despite the fact that some will consider Platformance: Castle Pain too difficult, that's the nature of the game, and it would be unfair to criticise for this alone.

However, combined with controls that lead to restarts aplenty, there's an undeniable feeling that Magiko hasn't quite tailored its play to mobile.

Ironically, it's not the old skool nature of Platformance: Castle Pain that leaves it feeling a little out of touch, but rather the fact that some slightly stiff controls means some folk will experience all too little of what, stripped back, is a brilliantly bold adventure.