Publisher The CoLab and developer Team Empreintes have released cozy conversational campfire game Fireside Feelings for PC via Steam, the companies announced.
“Today’s world can often feel overwhelming for many reasons,” said Team Empreintes CEO Victor Dulon in a press release. “It’s easy to forget the joy, compassion, and empathy that come from heartfelt conversations—especially when our professional, political, and personal lives are under constant pressure.
“We now live digitally in spaces designed to spark conflict and opposition between people. We wanted to create something different, a space where players can exhale. A space that values listening, empathizing, and slow, intentional conversations. With Fireside Feelings, we hope to inspire joy, catharsis, and connection through something as simple—and human—as sharing words beneath the stars.”
Here is an overview of the game, via The CoLab:
Following a philosophy that “we all need a good talk under the stars,” Fireside Feelings sees players sharing heartfelt and empathetic thoughts about diverse—and sometimes challenging—topics.
Players choose and customize their avatar from one of six different animals, including a besuited bear, a barista bee and a skater fox. Once selected, players begin their journey across meditative locales, including a beach, woodland and a record store.
There they’ll meet Spark, a sentient campfire guiding them through a series of questions inspiring thoughtful and empathetic answers under the stars. Sat on the other side of the fire is a second animal, sharing another player’s previous answers to the same questions and forming a contemplative, yet asymmetrical, conversation on the chosen topic.
To provide a highly robust level of player safety, Fireside Feelings anonymizes answers and the player’s in-game character name. Responses given by the other player across the campfire are not live, but chosen from a moderated database of conversations.
Furthermore, sensitive topics that might be discussed and might be triggering for players—including violence, self-harm, mental illness and more—can be avoided by removing them from the discussion at the start of the game or via the main menu.
Team Empreintes and The CoLab have worked with Safe In Our World, the games industry’s mental health charity, to integrate a link to the Safe In Our World website from within the experience, where players can access resources and support.
Watch the launch trailer below.