App of the week: Silly Walks review

WALK THIS WAY

In a world where every household object has come to life, things aren’t going well for any that happen to be edible. The evil Blender has kidnapped your berry chums, and only you can save them. Unfortunately – as you might have gathered from the name of this game – in Silly Walks, you’re hampered by a very silly walk. We’re not quite in John Cleese territory, but star of the show ‘Pineapple’ (in fact, some kind of cocktail) walks a bit like a bow-legged cowboy. It turns out, this isn’t the smartest way to get from your starting point to your soon-to-be-juiced chums; especially when in-between you find stabby knives, pulverising hammers, and all manner of psychotic household appliances.

THUMB BANDIT

In fact, it’s even sillier than that, because there aren’t even any remotely granular controls. If you expected to toddle along by way of a virtual joy-pad, nope – the fruity hero is controlled entirely by a single finger. Tap the screen and Pineapple plants its left foot on the ground and proceeds to rotate anti-clockwise. Tap again and the right foot goes down, and the tasty protagonist rotates clockwise instead.

IT’S DODDERING TIME

With careful timing and a bit of planning, you can get up a reasonable dodder, staggering along like a drunk after closing time, and very occasionally speedily ‘dashing’ across short distances by swiping the screen. In early levels, it pays to take your time. You pick your way around a kitchen where suspiciously elaborate pathways have been created to get you between tables. Sugar cubes are eaten – which subsequently act as currency to unlock new levels. And you partake in wanton destruction wherever possible, booting glasses and bottles to the floor.

WALK, DON’T RUN

Increasingly, you find yourself in absurdist nerve-jangling moments: weaving your way through a herd of hammers or cheese graters; doddering for your life from a vacuum cleaner chasing you very very slowly; avoiding being beaned by slices of toast fired across the kitchen by a deranged toaster. Make your way through the kitchen and further adventures await, including a surprisingly deadly back garden, and a street full of water-spurting fire hydrants and hero-squashing car tyres. At times (mostly when you’ve repeatedly failed at a level and been hurled back to the start), even the game’s good humour can pall. When you’re a few steps from victory and get squashed or sliced, it can be maddening.

WALK IT OFF

That said, should you ever find yourself yelling at a particularly aggressive goggle-eyed mower, because you couldn’t unsportingly coax it over nails some maniac left lying in the grass, you should probably realise you’re being a bit silly and go for a walk yourself. Just not a bow-legged one.