The first game I remember getting hooked on as a kid was playing with fire. As a child, the world is quickly unveiling all of its many secrets and wonders to you, and the strange alchemy that occurs when setting things ablaze was such an enrapturing activity, but also a bit of a scary one. Whether it was the fear of drawing the ire of adults or that strange sinking feeling I'd get watching something with color and character disintegrate into a featureless pile of ash, burning things was equal parts fun and unsettling. Little Inferno captures those feelings perfectly.

Little Inferno sees you simply buying a bunch of strange items for your tiny fireplace and seeing what happens when they start to ignite. There's a morbid hilarity to watching a teddy bear scream in agony as it loses its life to the flames and there is a genuinely fun Rube Goldberg-esque puzzle element to combing certain items together and seeing what happens when you strike the match. The game does an excellent job aping the design of idle mobile games that were popular at the time of release, but what sets it apart from those is the deeply sad undertones that run throughout the game's short runtime.

The game does not shy away from reminding you that the bliss that comes from hyper-consumerism is ephemeral. Hell, life itself is fleeting and there's no amount of empty distractions that is going to change that. Every time the game reminded me that nothing lasts forever, I felt that little tension in my chest I felt burning things when I was young.

We are in the closing days of the year, and soon all the promises of what 2025 was supposed to be will burn up into little more than the ash and smoke of promises we made and broke. If you feel a little low at this time of year, this game might just compliment your mood. Happy holidays y'all.