Cooped Up

Who doesn't want to play a game about launching a depressed looking chick up a series of ropes and branches, avoiding the attentions of demented plucked bird-beasts as you do?

Nobody who matters, that's who. Nitrome's latest continues its recent run of simple arcade gems, and while it doesn't have the spark of Silly Sausage or Magic Touch, it's still a bonkers, brilliant waste of time.

The game sees you twanging ropes to fling a blue bird up the screen. You press and drag to choose your direction and power, then release to fire.

Each platform you bounce onto has a freakish avian guarding it. There are fat ones that waddle towards you, flying ones, and insane bedraggled monstrosities that stalk you until you get them off the screen.

Chowing down on bugs and flies builds up a meter, and once you've eaten ten you'll burst up the screen in a flurry of gold and feathers.

And that's about it really. There's a gold bug that gives you an extra life if you catch it, but if you miss it you can watch a video to keep going.

There's a neat beat to proceedings that means you're definitely going to be tapping to retry after each run, and passing your high score becomes something of an obsession.

Chicken

It might not be the biggest game that Nitrome has released, but Cooped Up fizzes with a lot of the majesty we've come to expect from the dev. It looks stunning, the animations are fantastic, and it's simple to pick up and play.

There's a lack of immediacy here, and not much depth once you get an hour or so in, but this is still a fine slice of mobile gaming, and even though it's not up there with Nitrome's best, it's far better than most of the things on the App Store.