Little Inferno is a game created by the same group who brought World of Goo to the indie library. There is an ironic/meta message in playing Little Inferno, suggesting that games are not just superficial modes of entertainment, but also art forms that carry significant messages. I am awaiting the day when there are the “classics” required by high school students to play and analyze, similar to the way books and plays are read and analyzed in English Literature period. But let me wax less philosophical and more practical in this review.

My play time, according to the game, was 4 hours and 1 minute to complete my first play through. I could have spent more time, I could have spent less time. I’m on the fence on which I’d actually do. Having completed the game, I don’t feel like going back to replay it, but the completion-ist part of me also wants to go through and just walk down the guide list to finish off all 99 combos, which I’ll get into soon enough.

Little Inferno is a rather simple game. The larger portion of gameplay is spent in front of your Little Inferno (TM) fireplace, ordering items from a catalog to burn in said fireplace. After all, who hasn’t found that simple pleasure in watching logs burn in a fireplace? Well, games allow you to play around and do things in a moderated environment that you normally should not do in a real life, such as tossing plush toys and light bulbs on a fire. There are a multitude of items to burn, each with a unique effect. For example, an opera singer will start to sing, a razor will start buzzing around your fireplace, and a fire alarm will set off a sprinkler system. You can even put the moon and the sun in your fireplace.

The premise of this repetitive action is the “world” has been plunged into some kind of ice age, so to keep warm, use your handy Little Inferno (TM) to burn items. The trailer and in-game commercial video publicize the Little Inferno (TM) as a “toy” with children happily stuffing the fireplace with their toys to make a roaring fire. You receive periodic letters from the weatherman who is always going on and on about it getting colder and colder as he reports from his “weather balloon” like the Wizard of Oz. As you work through the catalogs, you also receive letters from your neighbor, Sugar Plumps, and Miss Nancy, the owner of Tomorrow Corporation, the company responsible for Little Inferno (TM). Your neighbor asks for items from your catalogs and is a little quirky. Miss Nancy writes the typical company letters of being responsible for your product and marketing for you to buy more things to toss into your fireplace.

You get money and stamps from burning items and soot-bugs that periodically appear in your fireplace. The money is for buying more items from the catalog. The stamps are to speed up the delivery time when you order. I’m not sure the point of this mechanic, but it probably means something in the larger message of the game itself. I never did use a stamp simply because I was stubborn that way. You can unlock more catalog books by burning a combination of items, like a TV and a corn on the cob for Movie Night. The simple puzzles of the combos is akin to filling out crossword puzzles. The only hints you have are the name of the combo (e.g., Movie Night) and the number of items to make that combo. There are 99 combos in the game. I finished a little over half before deciding I wanted to just finish the game.

The smaller portion of the gameplay is a click-to-move and some dialog options. It’s considerably more simple than the burning items portion of the game and I don’t want to give away too much by discussing what you do in this rather short section of the game.

The gray-scale color scheme emphasizes the freezing world as well as the majority of the population staying inside to play with their Little Infernos (TM). When you are outside, I found the lights from the house windows comforting to know that you’re not entirely alone. (I did find it odd when I ran across a small choir group singing in front of a doorstep and wondered why they weren’t inside burning things.) The art style is reminiscent of Tim Burton, yet unique to instantly recognize it by the same group who made World of Goo. There isn’t much of a soundtrack. Instead, the audio relies heavily on sound effects. Each item has a unique animation and sound effect, so to say it’s a simple game that “shouldn’t take long to make” overlooks the care that has been put into each item. Add in the physics effects of gravity, balancing items on top of each other, throwing items at the wall or at other items, even burning items and scattering ashes, and there is an impressive bit of work that has been put into the game.

The gameplay may be simple, but the message of the game is much more complex. What are the fireplaces of today? The computer, the smartphone/tablet. Of not so long ago? The book, the TV, the radio. The message is that we can easily spend a lot of time (“hours and days!” according to your neighbor) in front of these “fireplaces” and spend money to keep ourselves entertained. But there’s a larger world out there, beyond the “fireplaces” that we should see for ourselves. It’s a romantic message and most likely one that people will give thought to, then discard as they return to their “fireplaces” to “play” some more. But there might be a small few who will take the message to heart.

Little Inferno is a pleasure to play. It is easy to play in small chunks or in larger ones. It has a general appeal to a wider audience because its gameplay is simple, yet the care that has gone into each item to make each one unique is what brings out the best in the game. Maybe it is a game that will tell more about a person’s personality – if they finish it or not, if they complete all of the combos or not, if they take the larger message to heart or not. It is definitely a game to try out, to see what you can learn about yourself from playing it.