Arachnadoodle

Web-slinging is no longer the exclusive domain of your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. In fact, Peter Parker himself could do worse than heading to the App Store and downloading himself a copy of Arachnadoodle.

Taking the role of an incredibly cute spider named Boris, it’s your job to fashion a web in which to catch flies. The better your web is built, the more flies you’ll catch. It’s a ridiculously simple concept and it’s annoyingly addictive. The reason for this, I think, is that it’s a little bit Peggley. Which is no bad thing.

Each level you’ll play has a set number of pins from which to hang your web. Using a limited number of throws you’re asked to build the best web you can as once all the pins have been webbed, or you’ve run out of throws, the flies arrive… in style. Accompanied by The Ride of the Valkyries, the flies move across the screen getting stuck in the web – you’ll find, however, that the big point flies won’t stick to a low strength web which generally means you’ll fail the level.

Making a throw is simple. Point and sweep your finger in a particular direction and release. Your spider will leap, and web up the pins in his path. The more web strands you can lay, the stronger your web will be. You also have the opportunity to gain bonus points or extra throws by catching the special flies on screen while you’re assembling your web. Later levels introduce hazards in the form of harmful flies (which may explode or electrocute) and the addition of furniture and light fittings – the furniture allows you to make strategic throws by gaining a positional advantage,while the light fittings will fry you.

Graphically it’s really well presented. The spider is very cute – blow him up with an exploding fly and you’ll really feel guilty as his sooty face smiles back at you. The levels are beautifully presented as well – the pins in the foreground of a room in the house is a lovely touch and adds to the experience. But, like Peggle, this game lives and dies by its gameplay and, having spent many a lunchtime and bus ride catching flies, I can safely say it has quite a healthy prognosis. It’s bursting with the classic “one more go” gameplay that games like this should have – you’ll begin to chastise yourself as you’re playing because you could have made a much better web if you’d only chosen to jump to a different pin. It’s that that makes it brilliant.

Well that, and the little fart noises when Boris makes a web. Little things, you know.