When the trailer was released for Shadow Vamp, we at AppSpy were quite excited. The concept of rotating an island to cast shadows from buildings in order to help a vampire get back to his crypt was not only new and novel, but also looked like a lot of fun.

Well now that we've gotten our hands on the game, we can tell you that while the core concept is still delightful, sadly its execution leaves something to be desired.

To move your sun-shy vampire around you use the analogue stick on the left, The wheel in the bottom right corner, meanwhile, is used to turn the island. Keeping vamps out of the sunlight means you have to spin the island with a great deal of precision - something which the wheel input doesn't really allow. It can be very tricky to make small adjustments, particularly on the iPhone, with the wheel often registering small gestures as large swings, leaving the count exposed and hemorrhaging health. There are no camera controls either, so you have to take it on faith that you're not going to be cooked in the sunlight when passing behind a building.

Unfortunately, that faith is often misplaced. In fact, on many occasions during our play, our vamp would start losing health while he was still in shadow. We're not sure whether this is a graphical glitch, a problem with detection, or a deliberate decision on the part of the developers. Whatever the reason, it meant we couldn't really trust any shadow source completely, and made for a frustrating play experience.

All which is a which is a shame, as a lot of care appears to have been put into this game. The menu and level transitions are fantastic, and the character designs and animations of the vampires are agreeably ghoulish. We can certainly recommend Shadow Vamp as a unique iOS experience, but until the controls have been tightened up, it's only going be half the game it could be.