Gesundheit

9 cert, Revolutionary Concepts, iPad (also iPhone, iPod Touch) ****

Wait long enough and any acclaimed app game will be free. Gesundheit is a deserving recipient of the App Store’s Game of the Week, IGN’s Best Puzzle Game of 2011 and numerous other accolades. A theme of sneezing and sniffling, Gesundheit is a topical title for flu and cold season. You play a little pig, green around the gills, who sneezes adorable gobs of mucus. This ostracises him from the other piggies, but proves useful when monsters invade his town. The object of the game is to lay snotty bait around the levels, leading the monsters into traps and avoiding their line of vision. Gameplay is smooth and distinctive, and it’s packaged beautifully: the illustrations, all crayon and marker, look like a lost classic children’s book, and the music is a folky, ingratiating chorus of flutes and lutes. Gesundheit is an inventive, unique app game, and it’s a nice lesson for kids about the value in being different, albeit told through the medium of snot.