Krakatoa, Jr

Human sacrifice is generally frowned upon these days, but there was a time, say 15-20 years ago, when it formed an important part of a community's cultural makeup. Sacrifice enough beautiful virgins and you'd be guaranteed a bountiful harvest and good health. Well, apart from those sacrificed of course.

Krakatoa, Jr is an ode to this lost tradition, having you lead an island tribe up an active volcano so that they can be sacrificed to any deity you fancy – the game doesn't really specify – using the commonly accepted method of chucking them into its molten core. Smiles all around.

Controlling your procession of sacrifices is handled via the touchscreen. Tap and your leader follows. Although Krakatoa, Jr is drawn in 3D, your view is essentially a top-down one, which is a good thing because the levels are essentially mazes, complete with winding paths lined with non-scalable walls.

To make your trip to the top even trickier, red-hot boulders tumble down the mountain, threatening your people – as you might imagine, the death of one of your followers only counts if you make it to the top.

As much as the concept raises a smile, the game's execution sees it stumbling into a puddle of lava that strips its fun bare. There’s nothing to take the game beyond its rudimentary conga line gameplay. As such, Krakatoa, Jr ends up generic.

You frequently find your people getting stuck on the edge of a corner, putting them at risk of getting picked-off by rocks. Also of concern is that you end up blocking a good portion of the screen with your finger, which unsurprisingly complicates the task of guiding sacrifices up the volcano. In fact, just about any control method – accelerometer, faux analogue stick or directional pad – would have been a better choice [Correction: v1.1 of Krakatoa, Jr. does provide an option for accelerometer control].

To make matters worse, if you don't lead enough followers to their respective dooms, you have to start all the way from the beginning of the game again.

It's enough to make you reconsider retiring Krakatoa, Jr right alongside that deplorable human sacrifice ritual because both are liable to have you losing your head.