Little Inferno is little more than a weird virtual fireplace. It doesn’t however teach you anything about building or sustaining an actual realistic fire, it kind of plays into what one might think of as pyromania in an odd way. I say that because of who you are in the game and what you are burning.
The Basics
In Little inferno it seems you are a child and in the role of this child you are encouraged to burn things. In fact the fireplace is a toy of sorts. In fact in game there is even an ad for Little Inferno encouraging kids to burn their toys.
Now before you get too worried, the mechanics don’t work like running around the house looking for stuff to burn. In fact it is much simpler. You “order” things from catalogs to burn. As you incinerate items you unlock more things to get. Order everything in one catalog and you get the ability to order from another, and so on until you have unlocked everything.
The other way you can unlock things is through combos. Burn items that seem to go together and you will earn more coins to buy items and also earn stamps to speed up the shipping process to get your ordered items to you. There is a list of 99 combos whose names with give you hints as to what should be burned together as well as empty spaces to let you know how many items are needed for the combo.
Many of the things you order just sit in the fireplace and you set it on fire. A few however do interesting things either when placed in the hearth or after being set aflame. These few items are nice to find but are too few if you ask me.
When you reach mini-milestones you will get letters sent to you. These letters are what push the story along. Do not simply click through these as this is all the game content you are really going to get and there is not a whole lot of it.
On the Plus Side
- Simple fun with a few surprises
- A nice unlocking system
- Decent simple story
The Negatives
- Very short
- Pricy for the length of the game
- Not very replayable
This is a nice title to sit with for a bit but it is not hard, there is little challenge to the combos and not a whole lot to the story. This is more of something I might waste time with while on a phone call than something I would sit with and give my full attention to.