Wildfire Swap
Review

Wildfire Swap (2021) is a puzzle game where you swap tiles to stop forest fires. Each level starts with a grid of trees, houses and bare land. Your job is to rearrange the tiles so the fires that start can’t spread to the houses.

You take on the role of a wildland firefighter. Your goal is to create firebreaks between out-of-control fires and people’s homes by solving tile-swapping puzzles. As with wildfires in the real world, you’re at the mercy of the flames. You cannot extinguish them — you must do your best to contain them.

It starts easy but as the 120 hand-crafted levels get harder you have to consider your moves carefully as the fire spreads fast, and an out-of-control fire is unstoppable. In this way, you work your way through five worlds.

The simple mechanics develop as you progress and evolve as the landscape and environment changes. Along with the main story, there are side-quest puzzles that take the challenge in new and unexpected directions.

“Our Inspiration for Wildfire Swap,” says the developer, “is a game about exploring the efforts to control those massive fires. It explores how a small spark can quickly turn into a raging inferno and how easily forces of nature can spiral out of our control.”

Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Wildfire Swap 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 6 weeks ago.