Little Inferno (PC)

Today I'm planning to find out exactly what this Little Inferno thing I've heard so much about is. All I know is that it was developed in part by 50% of the team that gave humanity World of Goo (artist/composer/designer etc. Kyle Gabler), and that it's meant to be a satire about dumb time-wasting unrewarding videogames. But I'm hardly the kind of person who constantly throws their time away on tedious pointless games, so it's possible that the entire message may go drifting past my head when it emerges.

(Click the pics to see them in relatively huge 1280x960-o-vision).

That's good advice, an excellent thing to start with. You don't want any of your customers to accidentally incinerate themselves, as that is not the way sequels get sold.

Right, so I've got a brick fireplace big enough to fill the screen and my mouse cursor ignites like a match whenever I hold down the button. There's a creepy face attached to the back wall that seems content to mind its own business, and a piece of card with helpful advice on it. I have to appreciate a game that can explain its controls, its gameplay, and walk the player through the first level step by step with just seven words and an ampersand.

I suppose this particular puzzle only has a single solution, so I might as well get it over with.

Burning the tutorial sign earned me list of terms and conditions and a letter. Oh, plus a table to stash them on, which will no doubt come in handy if I get to keep it.

In the screenshot above I decided to see if I can pick up burning objects and the answer is yes, and they obey the laws of physics so I can also spin them and throw them around. The fireplace is entirely 2D though, so the papers stand on their end instead of falling backwards. Still, as a legal document destruction simulator it's very impressive I have to admit, but I'm still looking for a point to it all.

Hey, maybe the point is inside the envelope!

Uh-huh.

The letter turned out to be a message from Miss Nancy from the Tomorrow Corporation, congratulating me on the legitimate purchase of my brand new Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace. So it's a sandbox game then I guess, and apparently it's up to me to make up my own goals.

Well that's fine, I can come up with goals.

There you go, a perfect stack of a paper (only slightly scorched). I even stacked the envelope pointy side down to demonstrate my superior balancing skills.

Actually I secretly shoved a bit of burned paper in on one side as a wedge to keep the envelope from tipping over. And now my masterpiece must burn!

Okay this is getting more interesting now. Burning my stack of paper unlocked a new feature: a catalogue to buy exciting new things to incinerate, complete with chirpy 60s advert music. Only four products are available at this second, but every item I buy unlocks an extra one for purchase. A brilliant scheme no doubt, as it means their customers are forced to buy one of nearly everything else leading up to the one item they actually want.

Not that they have to twist my arm, I want everything anyway. I'm already waiting on some corn on the cob to arrive. You know, these delivery times seem like such an arbitrary delay that the developers must be trying to make a point about something.

Alright, a minute later and I have my corn on the cob, my alarm clock, and someone else's credit card all lined up for the burning.

Objects definitely aren't 3D models in this, but they're not static cardboard cut-outs either (except for the ones that literally are). Anything that can move or deform generally does. It's subtle, but if you look close you can see that the alarm clock's right hand bell is being pushed up by the floor.

Okay that's actually pretty awesome. They've found the perfect middle ground between a simulation of reality and cartoon surreality. I mean I expected the corn to explode into popcorn once it heated up, and it did (shame you can't actually see any of it behind the flames here), but I wasn't expecting the credit card to explode into money. But then all the cash burns up with absolute realism, the image on the paper darkening and distorting as it curls into ash, smoke swirling up from the flames. Meanwhile the metal alarm clock is still mostly intact.

Oh, also coins pop out of a successfully destroyed object, giving me back more cash than I lost by purchasing it. It doesn't make sense, but who cares I'm making money from it? I mean Steam Trading Cards don't make sense either, and no one's whining about making money from them.

Huh, another letter? This one's from a lunatic called Sugar PluMPS who just wanted to let me know that she's got a Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace and that she's toasty warm and snug as a bug in a mug in a bug. Well that's nice of a complete stranger to tell me that, I'll be sure to put her photo on display somewhere safe.

There, I'm sure she'll be extra toasty once I throw a few flaming bricks her way... OH SHIT, SPIDER!

Why are spiders crawling from down the chimney? Wait, don't spiders usually have eight legs? And more than one eye? Also is that a radio antenna on its head? Well that thing's definitely getting incinerated.

Hey, they drop cash when they burn too! This game is literally dropping free money in for me. In fact there's basically nothing I can do that doesn't eventually end up earning me money.

Oh hang on, it seems that there actually is a game hidden in here. I have to figure out a certain number of item pairs before I can unlock the next catalogue full of items.

You know, I'm sure I remember seeing "someone else's" written on an item description in the catalogue...

Combo achieved and I get a stamp for my trouble! Stamps can be slapped onto item deliveries to make them arrive faster, which is cool and all but I still don't get why they have take 20 seconds to arrive in the first place. Unless... it's a clever commentary on how free to play games deliberately make things take forever to push players into losing patience and paying a fee to skip the wait.

But anyway who cares about that, I've just learned that that seeds explode into flowers when you burn them!

Another letter already? How am I supposed to waste the afternoon mindlessly staring into flames, hours of my life burning away, when I'm constantly being interrupted with story?

Alright then Miss Nancy, show me how to use the fireplace that I've been using just fine for the last hour or so. But this had better not send me to youtube like Angry Birds Space did.

The video started off more like a Ren and Stimpy style spoof advert for the fireplace than an instruction guide (it even has a song), but now the cartoon has taken a slightly... darker turn.

Apparently up out of the chimney and way up in the sky, it's been snowing for years and people just don't know why.

Each day it gets just a little bit colder outside, as the world slowly freezes to death.

"But there's no need for alarm. Just sit by your fire and burn all of your toys."

"I've got the fireplace that burns at a hundred billion degrees! It's little inferno just for me!"

Well that was... disturbing. I think I need to go off for a walk now, or look at some cat pictures or something. Catchy jingle though.

Alright then, back to trying to survive the apocalypse by burning all my shit. After all, it's not like there could be any negative side effects to me releasing all this carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

I've got a project going this time, but it's going to require a certain amount of these letter bricks. I get letters in random batches though and I can't put stuff from the fireplace back onto my table, so useless bricks get thrown on the fire. Man I love how the remains stick around and that they crumble into ash if something is pushed against them. The whole thing really is an amazing simulation.

No, NO! BAD SIMULATION! Dynamic fire and the law of gravity just conspired to kick my ass, as the flames spread to one of my stacks and sent half of my rare and precious letters toppling into the flames. I'd be impressed if it hadn't taken so damn long to find some of those letters. What a total waste of my time that was.


MUCH LATER.

There you go! At last I have achieved total success. What a total waste of my time that was.

Though I can't burn them all just yet. There's something missing, I'm sure of it.

The game lets me take pictures from my hard drive (or a social network apparently, but I ain't going near that button), and put them in game to burn! Fortunately burning an image doesn't delete the file off your hard drive, which I shouldn't have to mention, but apparently there's a game out there that actually does this.

So long, the 2011 version of my website, farewell my original logo, I cast you all into the flames!

I shoved a battery in between some of the letters as well to give it a little extra kick. Seems to have gotten the job done.

Well that ends any concerns that the real-time flame effects are actually just an overlaid animation. This fan is drawing in all the smoke and fire on the screen, and it looks fantastic. I like how the screen actually gets darker when the fire gets stronger, such a simple trick but it really helps make the flames stand out much brighter.

More destruction unlocks more items, each with their own gimmick. Like a camera that takes a photo of the screen, or a miniature moon with its own gravity. It's not always about what an object does when it burns, sometimes the gimmick is what it does to the other burning objects.

By my calculations there are likely to be 140 purchasable items in the game, and that doesn't count the unique ones given to me in letters.

Uh, okay I can't say I expected that to happen. Well how am I supposed to burn my stuff if it's all frozen? Now I've got to thaw it all out! Or maybe I'll just throw a nuke in and resolve the situation immediately.

I love that TV by the way, it's like staring into infinity. Also when it burns, the vacuum tube blows first before the wooden case crumbles. It's details like that which really makes this fascinating to watch.

She can stare into the fire forever, but she can't turn away from it. And neither can I really. Bummer.

Sugar Plumps is starting to scare me now. I'm getting the feeling that she's got absolutely zero parental supervision, no one else to talk to except me, and she's starting to get curious about what's out there there up the chimney and what would happen if she just got a little closer to the flames. I don't want anything bad to happen to her, she gave me curtains for my fireplace (to go on the inside)!

Well I have no idea what I just burned to make that happen, but it's seriously impeding my ability to burn shit!

And then I went and managed to complete the entire game. But that actually turned out to be a good thing as now I can reveal the shocking truth about the ending: you can continue playing the game and completing the list of item combos even after you've finished the story. Also there is a story in there, and it's... thought provoking.


Alright then, here's my final thoughts on Little Inferno, it's a cool little toy with a fantastic fire simulation and a lot of thought and imagination put into it. The presentation is incredibly slick, and it's a really classy looking video game, with perfectly annoying music on the shop screen. It's just a joy to play, even if there isn't actually much (if any) playing involved.

But it also does a damn fine job of making you feel guilty for wasting your time on it, or anything unproductive like this in fact, because (as it continually mentions) you'll never get that time back. It's easy to shy away from the outside world and stay warm in your safe place, especially as everyone continually tells you things are getting worse out there. But maybe things aren't so bad, maybe there's a beautiful world full of amazing experiences outside, and you're missing out if you don't open your door and explore it while you have the chance.

Anyway, enough of that, time to put another game on I reckon.

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