Castle of Magic casts spell over App Store

When you think of platformers, do you think of fast-moving, cartoon-style action full of rotund Italian plumbers? Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? Of course they do.

But Nintendo's not on the App Store yet, so the coast is clear for Gameloft to bring its entirely Italian-free Castle of Magic platformer to the App Store.

Actually, the cute and colourful title has already appeared on mobile, and we really enjoyed its freshness, so there.

In terms of the iPhone and iPod touch version, its five environments now come with added 2.5D graphics. You can use accelerometer controls: by shaking your iPhone, you trigger your character's super power.

And the game features a virtual touchscreen D-pad and face button to give you that DS feel.

The basic gameplay of a boy who can magically turn into other characters - a arrow-casting hunter, the invincible fat man, the reckless swordfish - remain intact, however. As do the environmental challenges in terms of surfaces such as slippery ice, zero gravity space and sticky pastry, and the giant snake, octopus, a space-ship and snow-man end-of-level bosses.