Stack-it

Have you ever tried carrying out major building work with a blindfold on? On the advice of our lawyers, that's not a recommendation (do not try this at home, kids), but rather a comment on the task at hand here in Stack-it.

Handling any kind of heavy machinery with a severe visual impairment wouldn't be wise, yet it's this kind of handicap that Stack-it places upon you, restricting your ability to do what should be a fairly simple job.

All of the game's three game modes focus on one thing: replication. Using a set of building blocks, your job is to piece together blocks on a grid so that they match a shape or pattern flashed for ten seconds at the start of the stage. The blocks are randomly scattered across the grid, with the task being to reorder them into the correct pattern before the clock counts down to zero.

In theory, this is no hard job. To move the blocks, all you have to do is tap the block you're after, followed by the square you'd like to move it to. You can also stack blocks on each other in the same way.

Things aren't quite so straightforward in practice, however, and this seemingly simple action becomes a frustrating chore.

And it has everything to do with the absurd viewing angle. Because blocks can be lumped on top of others, the camera shows takes an isometric point of view, letting you see the entire board.

However, it doesn't properly show the actual squares on the grid themselves, which increasingly disappear behind the stacks of blocks you're encouraged to build. This makes it incredibly difficult to tap on a particular square when there's a tower block effacing it.

As a result, the game consistently misreads your moves, dropping the blocks off in the wrong places. This turns a title that should be an interesting distraction into a strenuous and irritating test of your patience. There's only so many times you're willing to repeatedly tap the same square until the game finally gets to grips with the move you're trying to make.

That's a bit of a shame because, as a concept, Stack-it could be one of the iPhone's most accessible prospects. As well as the standard Action mode, where the only goal is to put identical blue blocks in a set pattern, both the Puzzle and Free modes mix it up a little by throwing in different kinds of shapes and different colours. The challenges themselves are endearingly creative with new shapes and patterns offering interesting surprises.

Unfortunately, the point of view and controls provide a poor foundation for play. Stack-it is the kind of title that means well but ultimately doesn't quite deliver the goods.

It's one of those unfortunate puzzle titles that should be incredibly simple to play and difficult to put down, but is essentially crippled by a control method that doesn't quite meet the game's own requirements. Time to put that blindfold back on then, perhaps.