In Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tale “The Little Match Girl,” the titular character experiences a series of hallucinations before freezing to death. This interactive fiction adaptation begins by repurposing Andersen’s static prose in a dynamic format before swerving sharply into original and unrelated settings.

Inspired by the surreal visions of the original story, this text adventure places the heroine in locations that are as incongruous as possible with her “real” situation and with each other—but by interacting with various characters and solving their problems, the player and the Little Match Girl synthesize these worlds into a single cohesive system. Ultimately, mastery of the “unreal” world provides the Little Match Girl with the tools she needs to resolve her own predicament.

Ryan Veeder is an author of parser-based interactive fiction. He is passionate about distracting people from their problems.

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rcveeder@me.com

https://rcveeder.net/littlematchgirl/