Miss Claire Garden by Chris Neveu is a story of two games - one game that should be forgotten and another that manages to be fairly engaging. The twist is that they're both the same game and a single update in the gameplay makes all the difference between something that is unplayable versus something that is enjoyable.

In this Yoshi's Island-inspired platformer, you'll play the role of Claire Garden as she seeks to help the local wildlife and expand her business in square fruits and vegetables. On each level you'll find a variety of collectable flowers and birds that reward you with additional feathers should you happen to find them all. The controls are also surprisingly simple, with basic left/right control buttons, a jump button and a catch-all 'action' button that can be used to lift enemies or blocks to be used as projectile weapons or to uncover power-ups.

However I should explain or at least clarify my first paragraph for a moment as the original version was next to unplayable due to extremely poor character physics. Claire was all but stoically immobile, refusing to move with any sense of urgency and every jumping gap had to be made with a 'run up' that consisted of Claire slowly ambling at her fixed pace. Thankfully Claire has seemingly consumed a revitalizing energy drink of some kind as she moves in a way that's far more familiar for platforming gamers to deal with.

Still, a few problems have remained in tact, not the least of which is the somewhat overt 'homage' to Yoshi's Island and Super Mario 2 in its visual style (and gameplay elements), but also in the lack of checkpoints (requiring you to restart levels entirely) and a 'throwing' system that's hard to grasp as Claire seems to flop blocks in front of her unless you have some sort of momentum ahead of time.

Miss Claire Garden is a visually pretty and relatively solid platformer for iOS devices, but it seems more effort has gone in to the style over the substance; still worth a crack if you're after a new platforming title.