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First Review of Little Inferno

Nintendo Life First Review of Little Inferno

The folks at NintendoLife have just posted a poetic first review/impression of Little Inferno here. Some clips:

And now, thanks to a preview build of upcoming Wii U release Little Inferno, we can confirm that this next title is both a brilliant follow-up, and an intriguing step forward.

Describing Little Inferno is a challenge. Say too little, and it sounds like a quirkier cousin of Fireplacing. Say too much, and the experience gets robbed of its surprising magic. So bear with us as we dance around the impressive twists and turns of a game that consists almost solely of one screen.

Little Inferno is a game about destruction and isolation. It’s a deliberately small release that somehow manages to feel enormous, perhaps due to its whispered suggestions of an entire world beyond that wall you’re staring at. A world that may in fact be dying, but which is large and mysterious all the same. Sometimes in life you must struggle just to keep warm. Other times it might be worth risking the cold. After all, if you never risk it, you’ll never know…

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25 Responses to “First Review of Little Inferno”

  1. Random Oil Man says:

    A very nice, purely positive first review/preview. That final full paragraph should just about sell this game to anyone… but the comments by readers afterwards express that sort of mixture of confusion and misunderstanding that is bound to come about with such an ambiguous and secretive game, whose whole experience comes about through coming into it with a blank slate. It will be interesting to see how you go about advertising/demo when any revelation of the game takes something away from it. I hope in the near future unanimous positive reviews will drive people to pick up this fantastic game regardless of what they know about it’s true nature. But, who knows?

  2. puggsoy says:

    This is really the only problem with Little Inferno: you can’t say anything without spoiling anything. Even the review already said quite a bit, about the combinations and catalogues, but of course if he’d said absolutely NOTHING then people would be ticked off.

    But so far, from what I’ve played of it, I can totally see why it’s so hard to review. The game is so little, yet so big. It’s like a new movie: if you say too much, it spoils the experience. Little Inferno is the same, you need to experience it to enjoy it.

    World of Goo was different because, while you could talk about the base mechanic, and explain people to people what you do, there was so much of the game to explore and to discover new ways to use that mechanic. The environment changed. Little Inferno is just… different.

    I’m afraid of saying too much myself now.

  3. AtomHearth says:

    I think it is a good review, and thats what is counting. But i agree describing the game without some how spoiling it it very difficult. I also wonder why the present Little Inferno as a product of 2DBoy and followup of World of Goo, i mean it gives good publicity, but isn’t Tomorrow Corporation something on it own, just with people that worked on World of Goo? Or did I missed something out?

    • Random Oil Man says:

      There appears to still be a fair bit of confusion about this still, even though Kyle has addressed this in the blog, with a very nice Venn Diagram.
      Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel created 2D Boy and World of Goo. Kyle Gabler has also created Tomorrow Corporation and Little Inferno with Allan Blomquist and Kyle Gray. This is not to say that 2D Boy no longer exists and will never create anything again, or that this will be Tomorrow Corporation’s only game.
      The common person is Kyle Gabler, which explains why awesome both share a loosely similar art style, quirky humor, fantastic music and an emotional feel (albeit in a different direction). But it is clear to see that both Allan and ‘Other Kyle’ as he described himself bring something to this game make it a gem in its own right.

  4. MOM4Evr says:

    Ok, good. I was worried I’d spoiled too much in my own blog post, but I said far less than this guy did. For anyone wondering, he really spoiled quite a lot about the game, but carefully enough that you didn’t notice. If he’d said any more about the game, it would ruin it entirely.
    I’d personally hesitate to call the game an “experience”, because I see that word thrown a lot around when describing art “games,” and to call this an art “game” would be rude in my opinion. It is beautiful, to be sure, but it also really is insanely fun.
    I will say this about gameplay: Those of you who love physics games are going to be glad you bought a copy. (Is that spoiling too much? I hope not)

    • Random Oil Man says:

      I don’t really understand your comment. You appear to be suggesting that art games can’t be “insanely fun”.
      Braid is an art game, Limbo is an art game, Machinarium is an art game, Bastion is an art game, And Yet it Moves is an art game to name but a few games that I (and probably many others) found to be insanely fun. You can even throw everything Edmund Mcmillen has ever done into the art “games” category, probably along with most of Tim Schafer’s games. Not everyone will agree with each other about what games are art games are what games aren’t, because art is highly subjective, it’s the same with films. And film critic Rodger Ebert even said something about no one creating “a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers” to which I think he was wrong, and clearly hadn’t played enough indie games… games which actually have souls (mostly, I mentioned Tim Schafer earlier cos Psychonauts and Grim Fandango are some of those exceptions).

      • Random Oil Man says:

        Being an “art game” is certainly nothing negative. It simply suggests a higher emphasis on art style, and a unique approach to gameplay or structure or plot… or something else entirely. Even though I am usually against definitions, the one for art says this “the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others”. Why then are games not considered an official form of art? Probably because it is not these sorts of games (ones that have true immagination behind them, and really do stand for something) that get the attention and recognition they deserve, and probably because if such a thing ever did happen, we might start getting modern art video games… and that thought scares even my mind.
        One could say throwing a paint brush at a canvas is art, and people would willingly debate that for years (whether it’s intention was art or not… blar blar blar), but if someone creates something massive in an emotional and mental scale, something unique in it’s visuals and feel, something mindblowing in the way it just comes across, something that you are willing to debate and talk about with others because it obviously means something different to each individual playing it, something that made you feel like you were part of an emotional “experience” like no other, then that is art. And that is Little Inferno… and Little Inferno was, and still is… insanely fun. Ergo, it’s not an insult, it’s probably the highest for of compliment that could be paid.
        But ya know… that’s just like my opinion dude.

        • MOM4Evr says:

          I can tell I hit a nerve here unintentionally, for which I apologize. I definitely agree that games are an art form (I even wrote a blog post ranting about that recently). I definitely should have been more clear in my post above, so my apologies about that as well. What I meant to say is that there’s a difference between most games that are called an “experience, rather than a game” and Little Inferno, since Little Inferno is as gameplay-based as an arcade shooter, but still as storyline-driven as a typical “art game”, such as Dear Esther. My opinion is that to simply call Little Inferno an “experience rather than a game” would be selling it far short, as it has very good gameplay as well. I’m sorry for not making that clear enough.

  5. Tomorrow Corporation PR says:

    OMG I can´t wait for the pc version ^^
    Thr fame appears to be amazing ^^

    Thank you soo much guys ^^

  6. Garrett says:

    It is hard justifying buying a game if you don’t even have screen shots of game-play…

    • Garrett says:

      No matter how awesome the teaser… so awesome…

    • MOM4Evr says:

      You do indeed have screenshots of gameplay. They were in the Nintendo power article they posted in a previous blog post. I can vouch for them that the game is indeed fantastic; it’s just impossible to describe. They’ve described the game in its entirety here already in blog posts, but it’s a game whose awesome is impossible to describe, and you honestly need a copy in your hands to appreciate how amazing it is. I hope they release some sort of demo, otherwise I’m afraid people won’t understand the mindset behind this game enough to buy it.

  7. Virgilio Mccarl says:

    Just wanted to say i am enjoying the program. i am in Dakar Senegal west africa

  8. Branden says:

    It seems like my preorder on the humble store is not working… Im getting a 500 Internal Server Error

    The server has either erred or is incapable of performing the requested operation.

    Anyone else getting this?

  9. Gyle Kabler says:

    Is it coming out yet?

  10. Lucien WS says:

    Hi all,

    I was an early pre-orderer and that’s how I could discover the game this afternoon.

    Just 2 words come in my mind : Thanks You !

  11. WII_UNITD says:

    How much will it cost on the Wii U I need to know so I can get an eshop card

  12. hvcrios says:

    Dear Awesome developers, please add a FPS limiter or vsync of sorts for the PC version, the game runs at crazy high FPS for me (600 and up) and that makes my video card heat up more than it should (weirdly enough forcing vsync from nvidia control panel doesn’t work).

    Thanks. 🙂

  13. Eric says:

    Same here, game is using 100% of the GPU and the fan is getting louder and louder. Why would I need 600fps?

  14. Xnerdz says:

    Awesome game.
    As stated before, fps limiter would be a must. I hit 1400 fps in the menu interfaces and around 1000 while playing.
    I know the game is about burning stuff, but I would be grateful that you leave my gpu out of it lol.

    • Kyle Gabler says:

      You can edit your settings.txt file to enable vsync and cap the frame rate. Instructions in the FAQ!