You don't need a publisher and a big budget to make a cracking game. Homebrew games really took off with the GBA and DS, and now we're beginning to see small developers getting in on the downloadable action with the revelation of the WiiWare download service on the Wii Shopping Channel. There are huge amounts of potential in homebrew games, and every once in a while a game comes along that really pushes the boundaries and dares to challenge classics such as Super Mario Bros.

QWAK is one of those games, and kudos to Jamie Woodhouse for making such a fantastically addictive and wonderful game by himself and without the backing of a large publisher. He's gotten many things right with this game, things that even large scale developers fail at.

There's no storyline to this game, you are a duck, and you must collect fruit and keys in order to progress to the next blindingly colourful level. And to clarify, the later levels are about as simple as Albert Einstein pumping oversized brain cells into his swelling cranium. That's not very simple.

There are varying levels of difficulty that you can select when you start up your game, but even on 'Slow', the game gets so deviously difficult that you'll be grinding your teeth like a pestle and mortar that you dread to think how you'd cope on higher difficulty levels. It's good to see a game that actually poses a challenge for once, however, and the sense of achievement when you clear all the levels is phenomenal.

The fruit that your duck uses to lob at enemies can be 'upgraded' as you progress through the game. Pick up a different type of fruit to inflict massive damage on bigger enemies such as the huge mutant boss ducks that would ordinarily take a hell of a lot of normal fruit to finally be brought down.

QWAK has a really arcade-y feel to it, as part of the game's addictiveness comes from the high score table that can be seen on the main menu or whenever you complete a mode or die. Collecting any fruit, keys and other items you see and thwacking enemies slowly but surely builds up your overall score. You'll be hurrying through levels trying to collect everything as well as getting a decent time bonus like it's what you were born to do in no time at all. I know I grinned triumphantly in public several times when I saw that I had managed to topple my previous high score.

Only 300 copies of QWAK on the GBA are in existence, and are available from Qwak.co.uk now for £15 including postage and packaging. In my opinion, this game should have been released in shops, but the GBA is too far into its lifespan to ensure successful sales. QWAK has everything: charms, wonderful 2D graphics, an excellent difficulty curve and a level of addictiveness that has yet to be matched. Marvellous.