Capsule Review: Little Inferno
A satirical game where you burn things to get money to buy more things to burn. It’s a send-up of games that use compulsion loops and energy mechanics to keep players playing and paying, illustrating the unhealthy cyclic nature of the behavior they incentivize. It’s implied that children are rewarded for burning things in order to keep them warm since there’s a bit of an ice age setting in - but that this ice age is due to all the smoke in the atmosphere from everyone burning things. The interactions of the burning objects are entertaining and fire is pretty, but it’s mostly a message game. After a few hours, there are some big surprises when it’s time to deliver the moral, which is that you should break out of these loops and go do constructive things in the real world. For the right audience, this game is a wake-up call. For others, it’s just a diversion.
I Stopped Playing When: I finished the game.
Three Stars: Good. I liked the game enough to finish it (or just play it a bunch, for games that don't end). I recommend it to most genre fans.