Mr. Oops!!

That title is a little misleading, because it suggests an element of goofy slapstick. Mr. Aaargh!! would probably be more appropriate, given the hazards facing the eponymous stick figure hero.

Placed in a sterile, gridded room, he’s asked to survive wave after wave of attacks designed to kill him. The truth is that he will always die – it’s merely up to you to stave off his demise as long as you possibly can.

Firstly, you’ll be asked to survive 20 waves of rolling stones. These enormous rocks rumble down and across the 6x6 grid and you need to swipe your finger to move up, down, left, and right to avoid them. Dodge THIS

Thankfully you’re given a clue as to where they’re coming from, with a bright, flashing red-orange arrow next to every column and row from which they’ll emerge.

Reach the end of your first mission and you’re told you’ve unlocked Iron Cannons - faster-firing projectiles for the game to throw at you.

Again, the 20-wave marker is set, and this time you’ve no opportunity to dodge once the cannonballs have been released. Their launch rate also accelerates as you near the goal. Grid runner

Finally, the ominous Laser Weapon is introduced - a ferocious beam of light that’ll frazzle you to a crisp should you get in its way.

From then on, you’ll have to take on all three consecutively, surviving for as long as you can to amass a points tally generated by multiplying your totals. Pass two further score markers and you’ll unlock Legend Class, at which stage your only remaining target is the Game Center leaderboards.

After you’ve hit wave 20 in each game the pace picks up so much that you’d think there wouldn’t be much of a gap between the top scores, but the multiplier means two or three waves extra can make a big difference. I'm a celebrity, get me out of here!

It has the whiff of a Flash game about it, but Mr. Oops!! isn’t bad. The swipe controls work fine, and the presentation is surprisingly solid, feeling like a future ITV gameshow where Z-list 'stars' are brutally murdered for the sake of the gene pool.

The mechanical metal shutters that slam together as the eponymous hero is flambéed out of existence bring proceedings to an end with a hearty clang, and while the music isn’t particularly memorable, nor is it offensive enough to turn off. Death becomes him

If you fancy spending a bit more money, there’s an in-app purchase for a special Bloody version, which offers three new weapons and more gory deaths for poor Mr. Oops!!

Aside from that, there are different level backgrounds, but that’s your lot – and that’s ultimately one of the game’s biggest drawbacks. Because there’s so little encouragement to play on other than bettering your score, it gets old all too quickly.

Lacking the long-term appeal and challenge of its peers, Mr. Oops!! can’t quite keep up with the best score-chasers on iOS. A fleeting bit of throwaway arcade fun, then, but nothing more than that.