The Little Match Girl, by Hans Christian Andersen

This is a touching and funny twist on a well-known fairy tale (at least it's well-known to me, who am a Scandinavian, although I understand Ryan Veeder wasn't familiar with it before making this game). Mechanically it's a light puzzle game where you need to travel between places and perform a sort of Zelda-esque trading sequence. Thematically it's an interesting take on selflessly killing people and helping people with their needs, and the twist on the original fairy tale's ending was very funny.

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.

If there's one series that's interested me lately, it's Ryan Veeder's Little Match Girl games. I hear about the thing so much, and the increasingly crazy ways it develops and new games get revealed. So I took the time to check it out for myself.

I had been completely unfamiliar with the story, so I took a bit to do extra research before playing the game. Here, you're an unnamed little girl who's freezing to death at a street corner. You can light four matches to see different visions, each with new places to go and people to meet.

The writing is descriptive while using few words, and it made the text engaging to read. All the characters you meet have unique personalities and backstories. My favorites were Poseidon's two daughters, who are glad to accept you as their own sister.

The gameplay is a simple puzzle chain of finding an item in one area, giving it to someone, then using that somewhere else. Still, there's easy-to-follow logic with each. I always had an idea of what to do next, but it never felt boring or overly easy.

It's a charming story that doesn't take too long and is worth your time. I'm excited to see what the next games are like.

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!

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.