Retro. Love it or hate it, there's always going to be games that take simplistic forms and use them to convey a deeper meaning, without the burden of complication. Lunarcy is one of these games - in that the main elements of the game are very simple forms, but they create a semblance of known concepts - space ships, planets and docking stations.

Indeed, the jigsaw like, identical construction of both the dock and the ship allow for pixel perfect interstellar docking, whether it be 'forward' or 'backward'. And this is the task at hand. Using a stingy supply of fuel, you must apply enough thrust to reach the dock, getting 1,000 credits in the process. Landing back on the planet recharges your health and fuel gauges with these credits, and if you don't have to make another trip, the remaining credits become your high score.

Learning the controls isn't easy. They're touch based, and you'll soon learn that you must take care before you tap any of them. You have two arrows for sideways rotation, a stop button to stop the rotation, and a thrust button to propel your ship forward in whichever direction it is facing. Getting into orbit of the planet takes practice - especially as gravity varies from level to level. If done correctly a successful orbit can mean the difference between a green score and a gold score for each of the 48 levels in the game. Of course, gold is much more difficult to achieve, but it can be done!

Happily, no challenge in Lunarcy seems too hard to overcome - but you will need have perfect precision and timing to complete the more difficult levels. There's interesting gameplay twists too - one level comes with no radar, another has you trying to minimise the damage caused by a dock as the life bar is almost empty. Later on, rogue ships will try to mow into your craft, but like on any level, if they're giving you a tough time you can pick another one.

The nicest thing about this title is the speed of the menus, and virtually no loading times. You'll often retry a stage a dozen times and not be cursing the game to load quicker. We also like the menu system that has subtle animations between screens, although we do wish that double tapping on a level icon played that level, rather than having to tap 'Play'. Furthermore, the music generator in Lunarcy is rather interesting - the music adds and removes tracks depending on whether you're docked, on a planet, low on fuel, or in orbit. It's a great touch that we haven't previously seen.

Lunarcy has a tough learning curve, but it's extremely rewarding once you commit to the game. Allowing for unlimited retries of a level, it ditches the tired lives concept and instead makes the game one of trial, error and patience. We recommend it to anyone looking for a superbly presented, challenging game that does something completely different.

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