This alarm won't shut up til you play a game

Smartphone alarms are always trying to make you do that little bit more and this latest one is going to make you play

Alarm clocks suck, mostly because they take you from a happy place (the warm bosom of slumber) to a hellhole (normal life). So Microsoft decided to make one which might even be worse. Say hello to Mimicker Alarm, which makes you play a game or it keeps shouting at you.

The alarm goes off and you make it shut up, but then the phone throws up one of three games - you have to contort your face into an expression, find a certain colour and take a snap of it or say a tongue twiste. What fresh hell is this? The app will even let you share a screenshot of the expression your sleep-palsied face managed to crumple itself into.

Presumably the point to all of this is that if the alarm engages your brain in a different way you're less likely to doze off again, but it all seems a bit cruel to be rudely woken up and subjected to this on a cold winter's morning. Still, if you're curious the Android app is on the Play Store.