Little Inferno

Little Inferno is a neat little indie game about burning things. You're in front of a fireplace where you receive some mail explaining the situation. The world has grown cold, and to stay warm, people are burning everything they own. And buying new things, and burning those too. It's a mostly cute, slightly creepy game where the only options you have are to buy things, put them in your fireplace, and burn them.

For each thing you burn, you are awarded money, inexplicably you will make money simply by buying things and burning them. As you do, you can also make combos like burning the pirate and the boat together, which gives you a reward, tickets that you can use to bypass the delivery times on the new items you buy.

I wasn't a fan of the delivery wait times as a game mechanic. It just seemed to unnecessarily cause you to sit there doing nothing. So, that's one negative. Also, some of the combos that you're challenged with aren't exactly intuitive. For example, there's one combo simply named 'Plains and Trains'. One of the items you need to burn is a railroad crossing sign, but the other is a bomb. You're supposed to make the connection that planes drop bombs so...it's a bomb. Not what I'd call a logical leap. But doing the combos isn't actually necessary to complete the game, so it's just a mild annoyance.

So...you just burn stuff? I hear you ask. Well...yeah. But it's soothing. Kind of like with a real fireplace, you can just sit there and watch everything crackle away. There is also a small story to go along with the game, that reveals as you read more mail (which you then burn). Also the ending is nice and uplifting.

I can't say why I like this game as much as I do. Partly it's just got a nice aesthetic, and that really helps carry the game. Partly it's the casual puzzle-ness of trying to solve combos. Maybe it just scratches that firebug itch in all of us. In the end I give this game 3.5/5 stars. It's cheap, and it'll entertain you for an evening. Again, though, this is probably only for people who are into weird indie games.