Cut the coloured blocks, get as much of the debris off the screen as you can, and do it all as efficiently as possible. That's the challenge in Cut It!, an inventive puzzle game from ArtBit.

It takes a fair bit of inventiveness to make me go "ooh that's nice" when I come across a puzzle game, especially when it clearly falls into the "single screened, level based, can you earn three stars for doing this in the most efficient way possible" style of playing. Cut It! managed to do just that when I started playing, a promising start.

Yes it does take all the standard tropes of a puzzle game. While I did poke some fun with that in the opening paragraphs, it means that people downloading Cut It! will understand what they are playing, and also understand the basic interface, and how they will be judged at the end of each level.

That leaves the way clear for them top get drawn into the game. Again, going back to basic game principles, you need to clear a certain percentage of the playing blocks from the screen. For example, the target might be that you need to clear 50% of the red blocks on the screen. In that case, as long as half (or more) of red leaves the screen, you've passed the level. Of course to get the maximum three stars, you know you'll need to get a lot more than 50%.

To accomplish this, you have a pair of tools. A cutting blade, and gravity. By drawing a line on the screen, you'll cut any of the blocks along that line. Couple that with gravity and you can "release" a block... and that's how you solve some of the early levels. However, you'll need to think more carefully as you move through the more advanced of the 80 levels that are available to play in the full priced version of the game. For example, you'll come against unbreakable walls that need to be worked around. You may need to do a diagonal cut and let the top half of the block slide down; or have that top part push the bottom slice to the side to fall away; or make a see-saw like Wile E. Coyote and drop another block on top of it to catapult everything off the screen.

Oh and did I mention the blue blocks are anti-gravity, and will try to float away out of the top of the screen to help you reach that winning percentage?

Developers ArtBit has put a lot of thought into both the limited number of block types in the game, and the way that the different type of blocks can be combined, to create some great, and sometimes crazy, level designs. There's a relatively gentle learning curve, which is good because most people will be new to this game concept, but once you get a hang of things, the difficulty level ratchets up a notch... Clever developers.

Cut It! is a good indie gaming title for Windows Phone, but it's not perfect. The in-game music feels a bit cheesy, and the graphics are built around primary colours with some very basic texturing. There's some scope to make the game look more professional than it currently is (I would start by toning down all the white space on show), and the time it takes to restart a level once you realise you have made a mistake could do with some optimisation. But these are minor complaints and are easily tweaked.

My main takeaway from looking at Cut It! is a simple one. They've had a great idea for a puzzle game, they've designed the mechanics well, and it's both easy to play and a joy to try and solve. Everything else is paintwork, and that's an easy fix.

Right now, Cut It! is a leisure title that I think the puzzle fans are going to enjoy.