Fly, evil horsey!

Some of the best and most beloved casual games of the past several years -- Peggle, Bejeweled, and Plants vs. Zombies included -- came from the bright minds at PopCap, so when the studio announced recently that it would release smaller, edgier games under a new 4th and Battery label, we couldn't help but take notice. We just didn't expect the first game to focus on the graphic murder of flying horses.

Indeed, Unpleasant Horse -- a free, universal app for both iPhone and iPad -- digs into darker material than the core PopCap releases, yet this super-simple experiment shows definite flashes of the care and creativity of the publisher's typically sharp work. Playing as a dark horse with blood red eyes and wings, you'll stay afloat as long as possible by hopping between clouds and vaulting off of lighter horses -- which pushes them into the horrifying pit of chainsaws found at the bottom of the screen. All you need to do is simply touch the next cloud or horse you want to land on, or tap somewhere in the sky to launch your horse in that direction, and just pray you land somewhere safe.

Oops. You died.

But that isn't always the case, as the close-up view and sparsely populated skies mean a leap into the unknown may really just be a fall to your death. You can collect birds to accumulate a handful of second-chance mid-air leaps, but once those are exhausted, you're left relying on luck to get by. It can be frustrating, since there's often no way to see what's ahead of you, but while it keeps Unpleasant Horse from being a long-lasting addiction, it doesn't sour the experience completely.

It's best to look at Unpleasant Horse as a test offering from what could be a serious App Store player in the coming month and years (4th and Battery's second game, Candy Train, just hit as well, free and universal) and the prospect of a PopCap sub-label firing off many more of these quirky little games in the future is a very bright one indeed.

Collecting feathers helps you avoid (an eventually certain) doom.

The bottom line. Unpleasant Horse lacks depth and doesn't even have online leaderboards at present, but it's cute (despite the grim subject matter), colorful, and fun -- and best of all, totally free.