Little Inferno

Brought to us by the talent behind World of Goo, Little Inferno manages to capture the same demented, yet emotionally complex, style of entertainment again. I'll be honest, it was because of that pedigree that I first bought the game for my iPod Touch, and despite going into it blind, I had a great time from start to finish! Fast forward nearly a decade and I'm starting to crave the games of my childhood again, with Little Inferno at the forefront of that nostalgia. While I could say it was to be as true to my original experience as possible, I actually whipped out an old iPhone 4S to play this because I was too cheap to buy the game again. I'll need to repurchase it eventually so I can play that awesome new Christmas DLC, but the iPhone was good enough for now.

Little Inferno is a game about burning your stuff, buying new stuff, and burning that too. In an effort to throw a rug over the constantly worsening climate crisis right outside your door, you receive a Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace and a set of catalogs from the Tomorrow Corporation. Within the catalogs, you'll find dozens of different things, all being sold for the express purpose of burning them in the fireplace. However, you don't just get full access to the catalogs right away. You earn the right to buy each catalog, in sequence, by buying everything from the previous one at least once. Items in a catalog unlock the same way, with the previous item needing to be bought before the next one becomes available. Whenever you burn something, it will leave behind a little bit more money than you bought it for, and if you run low on funds from something like buying a new catalog, you can always make a little more money by squishing the bugs that crawl in through your chimney. With all of that burning and buying, one might be concerned about too much repetition. While that concern is well-founded, Little Inferno does a couple of things to keep players very engaged, despite the overtly repetitive gameplay loop.

To keep every moment interesting, each of the purchasable items has a reaction to being burned. Usually tying into their humorous names and descriptions from the catalog, something either happens when you burn your purchases, making arson even more fun, or right away when you place it in your fireplace, allowing for even more experimentation. For those not content solely with the entertainment of incinerating long-since-expired sushi, or setting off mini tactical nukes, you can also take on an additional challenge with combos. Combos are little extra challenges that ask you to burn specific items together, with the only hint being the name of the combo. If you succeed, you'll be rewarded with stamps that can be used to speed up the delivery time of your purchases. My first time through the game, I meticulously completed each of these as I progressed. However, I wasn't too attached to that goal this time around as the story was my main focus.

Little Inferno's other major strategy to keep you engaged is the excellent, world-building story. As you progress through the catalogs, you'll receive weather bulletins, marketing materials, and personal letters to the same mailbox where your purchases are delivered to. While you technically could skip through them as fast as possible just to get to the part where you can burn the letter, I would encourage you to read everything! I'm so firm in this belief that I would say you haven't even really played Little Inferno if you skipped the letters. The weather bulletins flesh out the world and start to explain why you're trapped inside with your toy fireplace, the letters tell the story of another fireplace-obsessed kid just like you, and the marketing materials add a touch of humor to this surprisingly dark story. The best part though is that all three combine for one of the most unexpected conclusions I've ever had the pressure to play through.

Little Inferno may be a short game with a repetitive gameplay loop, but it doesn't let either of those things define it. Through a combination of clever humor and a tinge of darkness, it managed to both hook me and keep me engaged the whole way through, even on my second playthrough. The act of burning things is a lot of fun, but the drip-fed story and that expectation-shattering final chapter are ultimately why I wanted to come back to the game in the first place. It may not be perfect, but Little Inferno still has so much to offer in such a neat little package that it's impossible not to recommend it.

The game is available for Android here (as of 1/20/23): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.littleinferno.google&pli=1

The game is available for iOS here (as of 1/20/23): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/little-inferno-hd/id590250573
The game is available for Steam here (as of 1/20/23): https://store.steampowered.com/app/221260/Little_Inferno/
The game is available for Switch here (as of 1/20/23): https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/little-inferno-switch/