Kahoots

If Kahoots achieves one extraordinary thing, it’s that it manages to make its between-level tutorial snippets the stars of the show.

That might sound like a back-handed compliment, but it isn’t. Indeed, the game’s Lemmings-meets-LittleBigPlanet offering is even better suited to iPhone than PSP, from which it originates.

It’s just that in Pegbeast – an anthropomorphised stack of everyday bric-a-brac - developer Honeyslug has one of the most appealing guiding voices this side of Stephen Fry.

In kahoots

You guide your little kahoot (which seems to have been plucked straight from a pre-school TV programme) around a series of 2D patchwork levels. More specifically, you clear a path for it. Like the aforementioned lemmings, our protagonist walks along oblivious to the combined dangers of enemies and spikes.

You can’t influence your kahoot’s movements directly, but you can swap around individual blocks on which he walks. Getting to the level exit involves moving harmful spike blocks out of the way and bringing useful ones such as jump blocks into play.

There are also bonus cakes littering each level, but collecting them is entirely optional.

Our friend Pegbeast introduces each new block and gameplay element through little sing-song ditties. Each is thoroughly charming and often laugh-out-loud funny, making you actually – shock horror – look forward to the time between levels.

Pegged back

While Pegbeast is a true one-of-a-kind gem, it is a little worrying that he outshines the actual game of Kahoots.

While decently fun, it’s not particularly amazing or original, and it won’t stick in your memory once you’ve finished and erased the game from your device. You’ve seen this brand of gentle puzzling many times before.

Still, it’s welcome on iPhone. The game’s block-swapping gameplay is better suited to touch control than the PSP version's D-pad configuration, and so it feels at home here.

Kahoots is a solidly entertaining puzzler with a warm arts and crafts aesthetic, but it’s one game that’ll doubtless be remembered more for its exquisite tutorials than its core gameplay.