Doodle God

Given that there are still some unfortunate people on this planet who think the theory of evolution is a flight of fancy, it might seem risky for Doodle God to introduce an entirely new theory on how life, love, and the universe all got started.

This is a game that attempts to re-educate you on the workings of life, evolution, and reproduction. In contrast with Darwin's devastatingly robust hypothesis, it doesn't promote the principle of the survival of the fittest. A logical mind will get you about as far as a disordered one.

Life lessons

For instance, in Doodle God's world bringing life to a slab of stone will mysteriously deliver an egg. Drop that egg into a swamp and you'll witness the birth of the world's first lizard – which, should it come into contact with fire, transforms into the very first cloud of ash. And so on.

It's Darwinism gone mad, but it's not without a certain appeal. When you somehow manage to get things right, you feel extremely clever.

A successful crack at Doodle God relies on your ability to be inventive, creating hundreds of different elements and animals from an opening suite of just four.

To make lava, for example, all you need do is combine earth and fire by tapping on one before the other. There's no set limit on the number of failed moves you can make, though the natural aim of Doodle God is to reach the level's target as quickly as possible.

Success is amply rewarded in Doodle God – as well as unlocking new modes, there's the sheer thrill of feeling your way to the solution of a tricky problem. Unfortunately, you'll experience this thrill all-too rarely.

Once you've got beyond the first few combinations, idle guesswork starts to set in.

It's here that Doodle God starts to resemble a shoddy point-and-click adventure: like such releases, play lives and dies by the developer's ability to offer object combinations that you can, in time, discover under your own steam.

Some of Doodle God's pairings are so oblique that finding them is the result of either blind luck, blind persistence, or tapping the game's 'hint' tab, which can only serve up a suggestion once every three minutes.

No doubt developer Joybits was looking to make the game as challenging as possible, and it's achieved it: trying to make your way through the match-ups is an activity that could take days, let alone hours.

Sadly, too much of that challenge stems from the necessity to try random combinations and not enough from the necessity to think laterally.

This Windows Phone edition is only saved from complete obscurity by some of the other modes on offer.

As well as the exclusive 20th Century quest – where inventing the most notable objects from the last century is the aim – there are extra puzzles to unlock, though doing so is no mean feat.

The idea behind Doodle God definitely has merit, but it's too scattered an experience to really evolve into something fun.