Little Inferno

Little Inferno is a sandbox-oriented puzzle video game primarily viewed from a first-person perspective. The player assumes the role of a small, largely unseen character who possesses the fictional "Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace", which they use to incinerate various objects, such as toys and appliances, to keep warm (necessary due to a seemingly unending drop in the game world's temperature).^[3] The objects release money when they are burned, which is used to purchase more burnable objects from mail order catalogs. In order to progress the narrative, the player must burn the newest objects available to them, unlocking new catalogs and expanding the selection of (more expensive) objects. There is no scoring system, nor are there any penalties or time limits imposed on the player, allowing them to freely experiment with burning any combination of objects.^[4] The game uses a drag and drop interface to position and ignite the objects. The PC versions are controlled using a mouse, while the Wii U version can be controlled with the Wii Remote pointer or with the Wii U GamePad's touchscreen, which also allows for Off-TV Play.^[5]

Many of the game's available objects possess special properties that may influence the other objects in the fireplace. For example, frozen objects such as dry ice cause others to freeze and easily shatter, and objects with strong gravitational pull move or attract all other objects. When set on fire, many objects react by activating, exploding, or changing the properties of the flames. All objects automatically vanish from the fireplace upon being reduced to ash.^{[citation needed]}

Little Inferno offers the player several goals to achieve. The player can trigger "Combos" when two or three specific objects are burned simultaneously. The player is presented with a list of the game's 99 possible Combos; the names of the Combos hint the relationship of the required objects, and it is up to the player to determine the correct objects to burn. By burning new Combos, the player can earn stamps which speed up shipping new objects, along with a small amount of bonus money.^{[citation needed]}

In Little Inferno, the story is told through letters from various characters, primarily the player's eccentric neighbor, Sugar Plumps. Set in the snowy city of Burnington, where the Tomorrow Corporation produces the "Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace" to keep residents warm, the game focuses on the player burning items in their fireplace to stay entertained. Sugar Plumps, who becomes progressively more disturbed as the game goes on, requests items for burning and eventually reveals that she intentionally set her house on fire. Her disappearance leads to mysterious letters from an apparition resembling her, prompting the player to burn certain items, ultimately causing their house to explode and escape into a new phase of gameplay.

The second part of the game transitions to a side-scrolling adventure, where the player explores Burnington and meets characters like the postman and the CEO of Tomorrow Corporation, Miss Nancy. Nancy confesses her plan to escape the doomed city in a rocket, and the player is given a choice to join her. The game ends with the player and the Weather Man, who has been reporting the city’s bleak weather throughout the game, soaring through the sky as the sun breaks through the endless snow.

Little Inferno is the debut game by Tomorrow Corporation, an independent game developer studio founded in 2010^[6] by Kyle Gray, Kyle Gabler, and Allan Blomquist. Gabler and Blomquist previously worked on World of Goo, while Gray worked on Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure.^[7] Inspired by the "Yule Log" TV program, the team aimed to create a game that started with an underwhelming premise but turned out to be surprisingly engaging.^[8] The goal was to make the game unpredictable and immersive, allowing players to discover the gameplay without knowing where it would lead.^[9] Announced in August 2010,^[10] Little Inferno was released as a launch title for the Wii U in November 2012,^[7] with versions for other platforms following shortly after.^[11] The game was localized into several languages, including Japanese, with Nintendo's help.^[12] It also saw a release for the Nintendo Switch in 2017. After five years without updates, Tomorrow Corporation released the Ho Ho Holiday Expansion in 2022, adding a Christmas-themed update to the game.^[13]

Kyle Gabler composed the soundtrack for Little Inferno. Unlike World of Goo, whose musical themes were recycled from previous projects,^[8] Gabler wrote Little Inferno's score from scratch, using the works of John Williams, Danny Elfman, and Vangelis for inspiration, which have "strong melodic themes and instantly identifiable orchestration." Gabler used REAPER to compose all the game's music, with some synthesized instruments used from a personal collection of SoundFont2 files.^[14]

Knowing that Little Inferno is a "difficult game to describe", one of the songs, "Little Inferno, Just For Me," was written to describe the game's premise in the form of a jingle. The jingle is used in-game in a fictional advertisement for the Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace, which itself is featured in promotional trailers for the title. Travis Hill, illustrator and friend of Kyle Gray, voiced the narrator featured in the song.^[14] Shortly after the game's release, Gabler released the soundtrack for free on Tomorrow Corporation's website.^[15]