I first heard about Say What You See from friends across the pond. This iPhone game from British indie devs Big Ideas Corp is knocking powerhouses like Bejeweled and Plants Vs. Zombies off the UK charts.

Gameplay: Say What You See presents a canvas with a music festival scene, and asks players to find band and musician names in the picture. The canvas is a rebus, so for example, a bumblebee, the number eleven and the Spanish flag would be Bee + Once,  Beyonce. The puzzles have quite a range in difficulty, from the incredibly obvious (The statue of a madonna is clearly Madonna) to thought-provoking (No example for this one, I’ll let you get the brain-tickling ah-ha moment on your own).

When you spot a band or artist name in the picture, tap it and a Qwerty keyboard comes up for you to type in your answer. You’ll get a green light for success or a red for failure. The game is pretty forgiving about spelling and punctuation. A yellow light tips you off when you’re on the right track, but not getting the right name. Usually this was me wondering if a band name had “the” or not. When you’re right, that part of the picture fades to gray to let you it’s been completed.

You gain points by naming as many musicians as possible and answering as fast as possible. Then you can share and compare your scores on Openfeint leaderboards, on Facebook or on Twitter. Sharing isn’t mandatory, you aren’t forced to share your results and you don’t need to be connected to the internet to play. And Say What You See is also great for in-person, co-op play. Pass your iPhone to friends to see if they can get the ones that stumped you.

Some of the bands and artists weren’t the most familiar to me, but that’s such a minor, personal niggle that it’s hardly worth mentioning. I’m going to chalk to that up to Say What You See being a British game, with slightly different pop charts, and not that I’m unhip. (Please don’t disillusion me on this one.)

My only issues came from my own fat-fingering frustrations on the keyboard.

Style: Take a break from 8-bit style or indie minimalism with artist Amie Bolissian‘s detailed hand-painted canvas. There’s so much to see in this game, both hidden names and tiny decorations, it reminds me what a hidden object game could be.

Zoom in for a closer look at the canvas or to get a new perspective as you look for band names.

Story: There’s no plot in Say What You See, but that doesn’t mean it’s not engaging.

New updates will include an upcoming ’80′s movie puzzle and a books-that-became-movies puzzle.

Overall: This is a nice brainteaser, and most importantly, I found myself thinking about Say What You See when my iPhone was off and coming up with band names in the shower.