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The Little Match Girl, by Hans Christian Andersen

by Ryan Veeder profile

(based on 27 ratings)
Estimated play time: 45 minutes (based on 1 vote)
Members voted for the following times for this game:
5 reviews34 members have played this game. It's on 15 wishlists.

About the Story

A touching short story.

Ratings and Reviews

5 star:
(8)
4 star:
(17)
3 star:
(2)
2 star:
(0)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating: based on 27 ratings
Number of Reviews Written by IFDB Members: 5

3 Most Helpful Member Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Quest through time and space, with a Hans Christian Andersen setting, February 6, 2022
Related reviews: 15-30 minutes

This game takes the classic, depressing/sacrifical tale of the little matchgirl and uses it as a setting for a larger story.

In the original story, each match a girl lit gave her another vision of brighter things. In this game, each match is used to teleport to the user to...whatever location Ryan was interested in talking about that day?

The overall puzzle structure is fairly lenient; it is generally a fetch quest, and each task can almost always be solved by brute force, but has internal logic.

+Polish: The game is smooth. I had a couple of issues with synonyms here and there (literally can't remember what, but it was me typing dumb stuff), but the vast majority of possible actions I tried worked great.
+Descriptiveness: Very clear and easily envisioned settings and characters.
+Interactivity: The quest structure is simple, but I felt allowed to go off the rails at times.
+Emotional impact: It didn't have quite the gut punch of the original, but was more fun.
+Would I play again? Sure!

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
A short time-travel story, January 4, 2022

By means of the matches, you'll travel through time and space to various places, meet a handful of charming NPCs, and solve a dozen inventory puzzles. Keep notes and you'll probably solve it in under an hour.

Veeder's NPCs are always reliably charming, and this game is no exception.

As I write this, the game identifies itself as "Episode 1" of a series. Thus far, it's a fine short piece; I'm curious to see how it expands in subsequent episodes.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Twisted firestarter, August 23, 2023
Related reviews: Little Match Girl series

The "classic fairytale re-imagined" is one of the most heavily over-represented genres in IF, but when Ryan Veeder does it, you pay attention. You play the titular match girl, freezing to death on a street corner but able to teleport to different times/places/worlds by striking matches. Gamplay is super-straightforward fetch quests: find an object / find the right NPC to give it to, or find an NPC / figure out what object they would like. Superluminal Vagrant Twin-esque. It's elegant, clean and simple. Locations are varied and surprising. NPCs are deftly characterized and full of life, despite how little they actually say and do.

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News

A Pretty Vorple VersionNovember 30, 2022
A new version of The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen is available at the author's website and on itch.io. It uses Vorple to match the visual style of later games in the Little Match Girl series.
Reported by Ryan Veeder | History | Edit | Delete | Direct link
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Game Details

The Little Match Girl, by Hans Christian Andersen on IFDB

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This is version 9 of this page, edited by salty-horse on 13 November 2024 at 8:19pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page