In the wake of the success of a game like Angry Birds, there will be two camps of imitators when it comes to game releases. One camp will take the game mechanics and add their own twist on it, and followers of the app store knows that when a game hits it big, we see plenty of these for years to come. The second camp takes the presentation or general theme of a game and uses the similarity to its advantage. That's what Puzzle Birds does. It calls you over and says, “Psst, hey buddy. You like birds in your games do ya? Well we got plenty of birds”. Luckily Smart Studio have taken the bird concept and created a relaxing and ingenious game out of it, that's as far away from slingshots and kidnapping pigs as it could be.

The goal of the game is to get a bird across the stage by dictating its flight path, and collecting all the balloons along the way (my guess is laughing at man's attempts to fly lighten the birds' spirits and give it the boost it needs to carry on). Strewn among these balloons are the ever-present three stars most games contain these days, and the puzzle element is in using the fixed points of the flight path to move the bird around all the obstacles, and hopefully collect as much as you can once you hit play and it starts flapping. Some of the aforementioned obstacles include storm clouds, lightning clouds, and clouds you have to tap to make dissipate. Lightning and rain drops are exercises in timing rather than navigation so it adds a little bit of random unfairness to the proceedings.

As the game continues, the levels contain more fixed points to drag around which creates flight paths of more interesting shapes to fly on, as well as more thinking on what is the best way to travel through it all. The music creates a relaxed atmosphere, and while sometimes the flight paths can be a little fiddly (as in moving it a smidge will be the difference between collecting a balloon or missing it), you'll not only enjoy finding your way through each new stage, but you may just find yourself eager to return to earlier stages to collect the elusive stars therein. Something simple and unique if you've got some time to spare.