Kumo Lumo

3 cert iPad (also iPhone, iPod Touch) Chillingo ****

It’s a fine line between adorably cute and twee. Kumo Lumo, a Japanese app game distributed by Chillingo, walks that line with aplomb. Utilising the touch-screen nicely, it asks players to move a cloud around a skyline, and to rotate the landscape beneath it. The object of the game is to water plants to help them grow and to thwart mysterious creatures that damage clouds and create forest fires. Your water and lightning are finite but you can top up by absorbing

other clouds or upgrade your abilities via micro- transactions. The aesthetics are very attractive and “organic”, resembling cut-out characters glued to crepe paper. (It’s how I imagine Wes Anderson would decorate a crèche.) And the gently rolling music is impossibly catchy, mixing organ with slide guitar. The cloud’s anachronistic Barry White deep voice is also a strange, but beguiling design decision. Gently ingratiating, and even a little therapeutic, Kumo Lumo is a neat, superior app game.