Splishi Splashi

"There’s always a bigger fish", observed Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace, neatly demonstrating in a single line how Star Wars: Episode One was both factually inaccurate and a rubbish film.

Logically, there's a biggest fish, and in Splishi Splashi it's trying to eat you.

So, against the backdrop of an upbeat chiptune soundtrack and vivid pixel-art graphics, you control a cheerful little goldfish engaged in a futile attempt to outrun death.

The sea is endless, and you'll inevitably tire and die. The only aim is to swim as far as possible before being swallowed by the biggest fish.

With your thumb in position on the right-hand edge of the screen, you slide up and down to adjust the angle in which you're moving. It's a straightforward system that delivers precise analogue control, and it's well-suited to the kind of twitch course-corrections necessary for success.

Not only do you have to avoid obstacles in Splishi Splashi, but you have to constantly collect orbs. These act as fuel for your doomed fishy’s endless escape – blue orbs for speed and green for stamina. Should you go too long without them you’ll be dead in the water.

It’s a mechanic that requires you to make choices as you’re funnelled down the path laid out for you by green and blue orbs, simultaneously avoiding spiky marine danger. If you want to open up some distance between you and your pursuer you’ll have to navigate some of the more treacherous, orb-filled waters.

Brown and gold orbs, with their juicy score bonuses, invite mistakes. Deviate from the straight and narrow to nab an outlying gold pickup and you may struggle to dodge obstacles on your way back to the path, resulting in a premature end for our goldfish friend.

Since your score is calculated on both distance travelled and on your acquisition of brown and gold orbs, the result is an excellent balance of risk and reward, with a control setup that gives you the confidence to play dangerously. Foul it all up and you know it’s down to your error, rather than wonky controls.

You’re competing for high scores and a shot at leaderboard glory as you take to the sea time and time again in the hopes of a better run. Score enough points and you’ll level-up your fish, giving you an added incentive to have another couple of goes.

But, really, levelling-up is slightly too grand a term for the progression in Splishi Splashi. There are five levels to unlock, and they’re spaced far enough apart for the experience to feel like a grind.

And when you do finally level-up your fish, he gets a slightly increased stamina bar. That’s it.

It’s a badly implemented system that delivers the worst of both worlds. On the one hand, it lacks the compulsive hook of a well-implemented levelling system, while on the other it lacks the purity of games like Robot Unicorn Attack, which hold no abilities back, letting you pursue highscores for the sake of highscores alone.

Genre benchmark Jetpack Joyride keeps you engaged in a repetitive central structure with in-app social leaderboards, a raft of unlockable extras, and a challenge system that encourages you to pursue goals beyond simple highscores.

Without any comparable features, Splishi Splashi struggles to hold your attention in the same way. The game’s excellent fundamentals mean that it’s perfectly suited to short bursts of play, but without a larger structure to explore you may be left hankering for a game with more meat on its bones.

And as Qui-Gon said, "There’s always a bigger fish". Should you spend a few minutes exploring the App Store, you’re likely to find one.