Indie studio Tomorrow Corporation has just announced that Little Inferno, previously only available for Windows and Wii U, will be available for iPad from tomorrow (Thursday, January 31st). The game will be playable on all iPads from the iPad 2 onwards, will ship in many languages (English, Spanish, French, Dutch, and German) and will get more in a future update, will include GameCenter achievements, and will have no in-app purchases or adverts.
For those who haven't played, you can watch the creepy teaser trailer or read Ian's thoughts on the game. Essentially, the purpose of the game is to burn things in a fireplace. Money emerges from the ashes and you use that money to buy more things to burn. It's a satire of games in which people spend hours and hours repeating the same kinds of tasks for little obvious reward, but it can also be read as a comment on climate change. The kids in the teaser trailer are told to burn their toys to keep warm because the world outside is freezing, and contrary to the phrase “global warming” many parts of the world are actually getting colder.
In the announcement, Tomorrow Corporation draws attention to a Tweet from the Twitter account for the “Fire Safety Spokesperson and carton dog named Sparky”:
Little Inferno (from @nintendoamerica) video game causing concern for kids fire safety ow.ly/gRT3Z
— Sparky the Fire Dog (@Sparky_Fire_Dog) January 16, 2013
But it's clear the game isn't really telling children to play fire but conveying an entirely different message. If you want to experience that for yourself, you can download it for your iPad tomorrow.