Fire

Humanity had a lot of breakthroughs over the centuries, which basically means that we have invented stuff that allowed us to advance as a species. Whether it’s the wheel, agriculture or written language, every discovery lead us to where we are today. However, maybe one of the most important elements of progress was fire, because people suddenly could survive a lot easier with its help.

Fire is a unique puzzle game in which you assume the role of a primitive man with a task on his hands: to find fire. Unlike most games in the genre, this one relies on visual cues and intuition, rather than written explanations and complicated plot lines. It might sound pretty casual in theory, but once you start playing and see just how difficult it can be to figure out what your goal is, things don’t look so simple anymore.

The story is pretty basic, and you don’t need dialogue to figure it out anyway. Thus, your caveman’s duty in the beginning is to guard the fire overnight, except that he falls asleep and the flames go out. Naturally, he is exiled by the tribe and he must find his way to another source of fire, but the journey is long and full of perils.

Each location you visit has multiple scenes, and you must find the clues in each one in order to move further. The objects you can interact with can be seen by simply holding the middle mouse button down, but that’s rarely of any help. It takes observation and wit to understand how each piece of the puzzle works, and there is nothing to guide you along the way.

The graphics are quite good as well, although they are pretty cartoony and simple from a technical point of view. Everything appears to be hand-drawn, but the artwork is impressive in most cases. There are some issues when it comes to movement, because it takes a long time for the character to walk between the scenes, but this shouldn’t be a problem if you show some patience.

When it’s all said and done, Fire might be a bit overwhelming for some, but it’s actually worth the bother if you are a puzzle fan. The story is quite funny and nicely told as well, which is especially impressive because there is no text or dialogue anywhere.