Who wasn’t enthralled by fire as a child? Who hasn’t attempted to set fire to their sister’s doll or their brother’s teddy bear? And now we have the option of burning whatever we choose in a massive virtual fireplace. Little Inferno refers to the irresistible desire to play with matches that exists in every youngster.
In the game, we take on the character of a little child who spends all of his spare time in front of the fireplace. The days are frigid, and we get reports of growing frost and snowstorms every now and then. For the time being, the player can only access a limited catalog. We choose products from it, which we then purchase, and they end up in our tray after a given amount of time. There are a total of seven catalogs, however not all of them are instantly available. We acquire more as we continue through the game and accumulate more cash. Every second, the number of toys we can take grows. We receive gold coins in exchange for the damaged item. If we spend 60 pennies for an item, we will receive, say, 75 of them after burning. As a result, the more stuff we burn, the more new products we will be able to purchase. How do we carry out the job of annihilation? It’s simple. We take the supplied item from the previously indicated container and unpack it. We drag it over to the fire. You activate it by keeping your finger or cursor on the screen for a longer period of time. And, exactly like in real life, putting a light to the toy will cause it to catch fire. The weatherman may occasionally speak out, reminding you how bad the weather is outside. After all, you need to smoke not just for recreational purposes, but also to heat your flat. Occasionally, a slightly psychic girl would leave notes. We’ll soon discover that she’s our upstairs neighbor, and she, like us, enjoys playing with fire. Women, by nature, urge men to do awful things, to the point where we increase the flames and there is no sign of the apartment left. Everything will be devoured by fire, and you will witness it.
For the most of the game, we’re not sure if we’re burning toys because it’s cold outdoors or because the girl urges us to. Or is it our innate fascination with fire that drives us to do so? Burning items provide spectacular flames. The more toys there are in the fireplace, the more effective they are. Two elements burnt together form a combination for which we receive stamps. These cause us to get shipments containing new things more quickly, as if we had given them postal priority. The quest for comobos not only diversifies the gameplay, but it is also its soul. It merely takes a few dozen minutes to burn new shipments. Then comes a dull stare deep into the player’s eyes. This isn’t helped by brilliant nods to the world of indie video games or the game’s very superb sound design. There’s just something wrong with the gameplay that makes you want to avoid returning to Little Inferno. It’s a shame, because there’s no denying that the game has latent potential.
Graphically, Little Inferno is pretty minimal. Most of the time, we simply see the fireplace and the things that are successfully burning. Nonetheless, they were presented in an intriguing manner, the flames are stunning, and the whole graphics create an aura that Tim Burton would be proud of. Unfortunately, during larger fires and explosions, my iPad mini sometimes briefly lose animation fluency. Little Inferno, while amazing, is only entertaining for a short time. It instantly piques curiosity and then extinguishes it, much like a match with a game logo.