Hands-On: Kurukuru Kururin

Kurukuru Kururin is about as simple as games get. Nintendo's Game Boy Advance puzzle game shares a few elements with Jaleco's awful PlayStation game, Irritating Stick, but rather than coming off as a festival of constant annoyance, Kurukuru Kururin is simple, addictive, and extremely fun.

You are a stick. A rotating stick, to be exact. You rotate at a constant rate, but can move at two different speeds - normal and fast. As this constantly rotating stick, it's your job to traverse a tightly packed course without bumping into the walls of the level. Since the stick never stops rotating, you'll have to time certain curves in the course just right so that the stick will spin as you move around the slope, barely missing the walls as you go. Later levels feature small springs (which look a lot like the springboards in the Sonic the Hedgehog games) that you must use to change your stick's rotation. The game stores the fastest three times for each level.

Like any good puzzle game, Kurukuru Kururin starts out as a painfully simple game, but eventually gets downright devious. Graphically, the game isn't much to look at - aside from the rotating stick and the walls of the course, you get to see a small character moving from one level to the next when you complete a level. But, of course, graphics aren't everything. The game's music is peppy and upbeat, and the crash effects when you hit a wall are pretty nice.

Kurukuru Kururin is easily the simplest of the Game Boy Advance games on display at Space World, and it's also one of the most fun. Developed by Eighting/Raizing, the game allows for a two-player game using the link cable and will also be compatible with the Game Boy mobile adapter. The game is currently 60 percent complete, and it's expected to appear in stores alongside the GBA in March.