Slinky

You're eight. You've seen them shimmer down television staircases, eyed them longingly in the toyshop, and now, at last, you have a Slinky of your own. You take it to the top of the stairs and prepare yourself for the spectacle of new life. Thrilling with anticipation, you get on your knees and give the squat Slinky a gentle shove.

Like an aluminium waterfall, it cascades over the edge of the step, oozes smartly onto the step below. Then stops.

Roughly 22 seconds later, it's in the top drawer, consigned to darkness and an awkward affair with an unspooled ball of string.

Few toys have a more pitiful appeal-to-fulfilment ratio than the Slinky. While it looks on the adverts sensationally like a living, shimmering worm, actually getting it to travel more than two steps requires such precision and patience that success – at the end of the day, a coil of metal going down some stairs – could never meet expectations.

That said, it's an intriguing idea for a video game, particularly on the mobile platform where novel, quirky titles thrive. Slinky is an attempt to realise the potential of a mundane real-world activity in the infinitely pliable video game universe. Many years ago, at the top of a lonely staircase, your world was rocked by the squalid reality of Slinky. Has developer Progressive Media repaired the damage in the virtual world?

To some extent, yes, it's good news. As long as you push the right buttons, your Slinky will always find the next step, and as long as you guide it down the right steps, it will always have enough propulsion to continue.

The game takes place in an isometric landscape of cubes, toy clowns, building blocks, and phone boxes. The object is to steer Slinky through this landscape towards a chequered exit, descending by no more than one level at a time and avoiding the patrolling monsters. Aside from the monsters, hazards include pools of lava, ponds, and – most dangerous of all – high drops.

Starting at the top of the level, you have to work your way down to retain momentum, indicated by a power bar that diminishes as you move horizontally, and replenishes whenever you descend by a level. To help you reach awkwardly distant coins and jewels, your Slinky can receive an injection of pace on a horizontal plane by tumbling onto an energising square, while to enable you to traverse lava and water you can gobble red and pale blue protective orbs.

At first, this is all incredibly tricky. Ascertaining which squares are aligned with which takes time and perspective-gauging practice, and the controls – of which Progressive Media provides three methods – don't all lend themselves to easy manoeuvring on an isometric plane. Being a Slinky, your avatar takes time to go from square to square, and adding to the occasional panic of perspective confusion is the feeling of helplessness that its arcing insouciance engenders.

Indeed, the relationship between player and avatar is an unusual one, only enabling you to nudge Slinky once every square, and it's a queer sensation during frantic moments to have only glancing contact with the character you're desperate to protect.

As well as keeping it out of danger, you have to keep Slinky energised by ensuring that you travel downwards or across an energising pad once every few moves, adding to the number of things that can end yet another life.

And all in all, what with one thing and another, this is a terrifically difficult game. It speaks volumes for Slinky's compulsive playability, then, that in the face of its draconian demands you'll keep on playing. It may be a damp squib in real life, but in the virtual universe Slinky is a feisty and demanding performer. No Skipping Stone, by any means, but more than worthwhile nonetheless.