Review: Tick Tock Toys For iOS

Tick Tock Toys coaxes you in gently, with its charming mix of reaction-based tinkering and logic-teasing action. Even your goal is pleasantly straightforward - you're tasked with guiding a tiny toy robot to safety as it trundles on a predetermined path around the playroom floor.

You've no direct control over your robot, though. Instead, it's down to you to manipulate the various toys and trinkets strewn across his path.

A toy train might need to be yanked back along its track, for instance, or a frog poked to retract its tongue. Matryoshka dolls, meanwhile, need multiple jabs to pack them all up so they're safely out of harm's way.

Touch and go
It's a delightfully malleable world that makes brilliant use of the touchscreen. Each toy responds to a different form of input - from dragging and flicking to frantic battering - and there's real pleasure to be found in simply fiddling around until you've learned what they do.

There's an impressive variety of obstacles on offer, but it's the way these individual elements are brought together across the game's 120 stages that truly makes Tick Tock Toys shine. Sure, your basic goal never changes as you clear a path for your little robot friend, but there's real ingenuity on display as each level finds new uses for its toys.

For instance, some levels task you with quickly shunting swathes of blocks out of the way, while others construct strange little shooting galleries or sliding puzzles. Tick Tock Toys's sense of unabashed creativity is seemingly endless and it makes for a consistently delightful - and increasingly devious - experience.

BOX OF DELIGHTS 

There's a lot to get stuck into, too, with four different themed worlds - Toy Box, Japan, Pirates, and Safari - each featuring 30 puzzles split into ten stages.

Once you've cleared each challenge, you can try your hand at earning a gold ranking - a surprisingly tricky task that demands near-flawless performance. Rather brilliantly, there's also a bonus Mirror mode that flips puzzles for double the fun.

Tick Tock Toys might not be an entirely original - or especially difficult - puzzler, but it's delivered with such style and imagination that it's hard to resist the game's charms. It's packed with character and consistently ingenious level design, making for a an experience that's as delightful as it is rewarding.