We Definitely Started This Fire
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/72000/chillin-by-the-fire-switch-2-review
To tell you the truth, outside of a curious few hours with Power Wash Simulator, the ‘job-like simulator’ genre has never really captured my attention. Outside of the novelty of certain interactions and how you see progression over time when performing menial tasks, I think that these games tickle a part of my brain that makes me a bit too aware that I’m playing a video game. So when a campfire-building-simulator was announced during the last Nintendo partner showcase my response wasn’t “Oh my god, another simulator; this genre is getting dumber”, but rather “oh crap, that’s a new Oink game?”. Indeed, possibly one of the most socially focused boardgame companies out there decided to toss their hat into the ring of fire. And to tell you the truth, this stuff is lit.
Oink Games is probably best known as the publisher behind board games like Scout, A Fake Artist Goes to New York and Deep Sea Adventure. They’re a Japanese publisher and have made waves with their clean art and socially focused game design, spearheaded by their lead designer Jun Sasaki. Let’s Play: Oink Games came out on Switch and mobile a few years back and has been one of my go-to multiplayer online games. A simple, but streamlined experience that has given me plenty of laughter and fun evenings with friends both in digital and physical form. Chillin’ by the Fire translates this experience really well into a social activity that goes surprisingly deeper than you may expect.
Upon starting a level, you are placed in front of a campfire with a single igniter and some logs spread across the ground. You can grab these logs with your tongs, bring them over to the chopping block, cut them down into smaller pieces and proceed to lay them out in your fire pit. Ignite the starter and watch the flames slowly spread onto your tactically laid out logs. The game is simply to keep your fire growing and going for as long as possible. You can add larger logs, which are a great source for increasing your fire, but take a long time to start to burn, or cut logs down to little splinters, which can help you to spread the core of your bonfire to the outer edges. You can also rotate and twist the logs with the directional buttons, allowing you to fill up gaps. The strength of the fire is indicated with a meter that goes up and down depending on how big the fire gets and if logs start to burn up. Starting the fire is easy, but getting it to grow consistently is where the real challenge lies.
While building the fire is pretty relaxing, it becomes a great social activity when played with friends. The game supports both online and local gameshare and gamechat features, including the use of a camera for video-support. That’s right, you can play this with friends who don’t own a copy of the game themselves! For the first time it felt like a return of the glory days of DS Download Play. It was surprisingly fun to hang with a friend and slowly build the biggest fire we could muster. I started to use the campfire measuring tool to keep track of which logs needed to be stacked and replaced, while my friend kept searching for logs and chopping them down. What makes multiplayer in particular fun is that you’re also given prompts to chat about. Questions like: “what advice would you have given yourself ten years ago today?” make for interesting conversation pieces while slowly building out that fire. The game truly puts the chill in Chillin’ by the Fire, which I wasn’t expecting. There’s also achievements, depending on how fast and well you keep the bonfire going. For these, you get points that can be exchanged for different looking axes and fire blowers, but also some fun gag-items like fireworks, musical instruments and even a glow stick.
I don’t think the game is without flaws, however. Stacking and rotating firewood would’ve been a lot more precise and fun using motion controls. If you try to squeeze a log between other pieces of wood, most of the time it just gets warped to the top of the pyre. And while you can buy chairs and tents, they are really only decorative pieces. Outside of chatting with friends or trying to get your fire to reach enormous levels, there isn’t that much going on in this game. Which frankly is fine. It’s a laidback activity that felt very zen in its approach. It’s something you can put on in the background when hanging out with friends, or perhaps while watching a show on a different screen.
This campfire simulator is probably the most extra a game of this scope and type can be, and yet its focus on social elements makes it a delight to return to. Oink Games decided to try something very different here, but has remained true to their design philosophy. No, I did not think I’d recommend a fire-building simulator in 2025, but frankly this one ignited something in me that I wasn’t expecting. Now how long will it take for the true pyromaniacs to start speedrunning this game?
Topic: Chillin' by the Fire (Switch 2) Review (Read 49 times)
