Sprocket

Never did I go along to the careers adviser back at school to be told that I'd be best suited for flying planes or working for the secret service - writing, in some form or other, was always the focus of my 'ability.' As you read this, you may be asking yourself where that ability went. Well, it's a worthy question and one that leads straight to another: Would I have been better suited to something more practical?

If there's ever a game to test this theory, then it's Sprocket. This is a title that many would consider to be an engineer's dream pastime, where the objective is to get a set of cogs turning in the right direction.

The premise is a fairly plain one. In each of Sprocket's thirty levels, you start off with a moving gear that spins around in one direction. On the other side of the screen is a stagnant gear, and you have to use cogs to link the two. You must get that second gear moving in a specific direction, though, using specific cogs for the task.

You're given varying numbers of gears to use each time, and a new collection of cogs of different sizes and colours is handed out with each level. Setting them in place is a matter of moving them down from the top of the screen to where the action is at the bottom. When you've positioned a cog so that it touches a moving gear, it latches on and begins to move too. Actually working out the correct sequence so that you're not only using the right gears, but the gear at the end of the sequence is turning in the right direction, is fairly taxing.

In fact, for most of us, describing Sprocket as "fairly taxing" is like suggesting the iPhone has been "fairly successful." While esteemed engineers might find this process a breeze, the likelihood is that the rest of us might never get past the opening few levels. The game couldn't be easier to control, with the ability to zoom in and out and move around the screen applied in an identical manner to the iPhone's multi-touch web browser.

Unfortunately, easy controls don't translate to easy gaming. With no help or clues on offer whatsoever, it's entirely possible to spend upwards of an hour on one of the early levels and still be none the wiser.

Though tactile in implementation, Sprocket is actually a severe mental test and one that some will take to like a duck to water, while others are left utterly bamboozled. While there's no clock counting down your progress, bonus points are given level by level should you complete your mission with haste. The speed at which the bonus becomes nullified, however, suggests that it won't be a feature many will get to enjoy.

Despite its difficulty level, it'd be unfair to be too hard on Sprocket, given that it's a simple idea well executed. Nevertheless, with no free version on offer and a lack of guidance during play, you'll probably find the difficulty more onerous than challenging.