There was a time when you couldn’t swing a Lightning cable without hitting a decent premium run-and-gun game on the App Store. That well has dried up considerably over the years, unfortunately, but we still see the occasional new entry. Deep Space ($2.99) is publisher Crescent Moon’s latest go at the genre, developed by Bug Studios. Rather than being a stage-based affair like most of its genre-mates tend to be, this game is a procedurally-generated endless challenge to see how far you can go before getting iced. It has some good ideas, but it’s ultimately let down by unreliable controls and a difficulty level that skews towards the unfair a little too often.

You play as some kind of space explorer with a little ship that doesn’t have much more than four walls and a shop. Each session has you docking with a massive, seemingly-abandoned ship that quickly reveals itself to be quite occupied indeed. With the doors shutting behind you as you progress through each zone, there’s nowhere to go but forward. Luckily, you have three weapons at your disposal. First, you can do a nifty double-jump that is basically the key to surviving any length of time. Second, you’ve got a shop that can provide you with upgrades if you have the coins for them. And finally, you’ve got… well, you’ve got an actual weapon, a gun. It’s not a great gun, but you can upgrade it and it has bottomless ammo. The shop sells an assortment of other guns,...