Tentacles

Sitting here, in a room littered with smartphones and tablets, it's fair to say I've become acclimatised to the various pros and cons of the touchscreen.

Yes, the technology may have turned text typos into an annoying art form, and pulling away the handset after a call to find it swimming in grease is never a comfortable sight, but touchscreens are part of the furniture these days.

For us most of us, at least.

Three in one

Some developers apparently still struggle. Games where the touchscreen has been an obvious compromise from beginning to end aren't hard to find, even now.

In contrast, Tentacles - like its Windows Phone brethren CarneyVale Showtime and Max and the Magic Marker – has them at the centre of everything it does.

The game puts you in control of an alien blob with a single blinking eye. Every touch of the screen fires out one of its three tentacles towards the nearest surface in that direction, allowing you to steer the little invader through the insides of an evil scientist.

Most of his adventures take place in rather tight spaces, which act as the perfect playground.

Meaningful progression comes from mastering the art of firing all three out in quick succession, while shooting blind will soon land you in trouble.

As you make your way through Tentacle the space available for your tentacles narrows. Stages are soon decorated with hazards left, right, and centre (spikes and exploding puss balls just some of those on offer), and mere survival becomes as much a factor as speed.

On this score Tentacles has to be commended: no sooner are you au fait with simply moving through the game's levels, than it ups the ante, turning the levels into minefields.

Such is the balance of controls, however, that you always feel in command. It's an important asset, given that the pellets that line the levels (and add to your score) drag you into perilous situations throughout.

Add to that your foodstuff – fellow bug-eyed beasties that take a chunk out of your health unless you neutralise them with a grab first – and keeping on the straight and narrow isn't really a possibility.

The main problem with Tentacle is that it soon becomes repetitive.

Technically, there are 40 stages on offer, but many feel like almost exact replicas of other levels, following the same formula apart from the odd additional menace here and there.

Bonus runs mid-stage add a touch of flavour (charging you with making through stretches in quick time, or without taking any damage), but moments of ingenuity are few and far between.

That's by no means to say Tentacles is a bad game. In terms of presentation and controls, it holds its own against anything else on the Windows Marketplace. It's just a shame that it doesn't match this with longevity and variety.