Fire Tonight is a single-player narrative puzzle indie game, brought to us by Reptoid Games and Way Down Deep. It is inspired by the song that shares the same name, “Fire Tonight” by Information Society, and will be available now on PC and Nintendo Switch.

Maya and Devin are separated in a city on fire. In the year 1990, they’re on their own, wondering about the choices that brought them here, how they met, and what the future might hold. Fire Tonight is a lighthearted but thoughtful walk through the story of a relationship. A story about believing in each other when the whole world tries to keep them apart.

The game starts off with Maya and Devin talking on the phone before power is cut due to the fires happening in the city. Maya decides to go see Devin in person after not being able to contact him via a payphone. As Maya sets off on the streets she is met with the puzzles that await, some of which may be just easily finding a key to unlock a door, or having to find batteries to power her Walkman, and altering certain fires to progress.

While Maya is hitting the street Devin is looking around his apartment looking back on their time spent together and giving players a bit more back story for the love birds from the first date to eventful moments in any relationship.

The graphical art style used for Fire Tonight is put together in a sort of comic book style of animation, and during interactions, the characters speaking will be displayed on the screen with a text box next to them. The city designs and lighting are well done, and being able to rotate the camera around buildings or large structures is a must-do, as there could be ladders or secrets tucked away out of plain view.

As expected from a city-wide blackout a lot of the lighting and colours used are dark while the fires that are present have a purple flame burn which blends in well with a lot of the blue that is used in the environment.

The controls for Fire Tonight are easy to learn and play with for both controller and keyboard and mouse users. There is nothing that is advanced in the control aspect that will leave players confused or forgetting a button assignment. As mentioned above Fire Tonight is inspired by Information Society’s song, so it features heavily in the background and blends in well with a nice relaxing puzzle game, helping players unwind and get immersed within the love story of Maya and Devin.

In terms of difficulty, the puzzles themselves were not overly hard to solve. Just explore the area and you will find a way to progress most times. Finding a key item will pave the way to keep going.

In conclusion, Fire Tonight offers a nice and relaxing vibe for players of all ages, and I did not come across any bugs or issues, which is always a solid positive. I did start to feel a bit of repetitive gameplay in terms of finding keys and the length of areas, but it is a good game. I just felt it could be longer, a bit more expanded, and require more exploring to make puzzles a bit harder to solve.

Written by: Shane Walsh