TAKE A BREATH AND WATCH THE FIRESIDE FEELINGS LAUNCH TRAILER: https://youtu.be/Y3j3JRzardU
Saturday, 7 June 2025 – Comfy, conversational campfire experience Fireside Feelings is launching on Steam today as part of Wholesome Direct, the annual showcase for games with compassion and coziness.
Indie publisher The CoLab and the developer, Team Empreintes, made the announcement during the annual digital showcase of comforting, compassionate and cozy games.
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 customise 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 anonymises 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.
Victor Dulon, CEO at Team Empreintes, says: “Today’s world can often feel overwhelming for many reasons. 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, empathising 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."
NOTES TO EDITORS Assets: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1W_6PlIR-iiM-vAjztN5HhLFyR6DbdgzV?usp=sharing
Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2990600/Fireside_Feelings
Trailer link: https://youtu.be/Y3j3JRzardU
Safe In Our World: https://safeinourworld.org/
Contact: press@thecolabgames.com
Project financed by the Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine
About The CoLab
Founded in 2025, The CoLab is a UK-based games publisher - with a focus on indie titles - and a mantra of empowering developers through kindness, collaboration and support. Check out our growing portfolio of games at store.steampowered.com/publisher/TheColab and visit www.thecolabgames.com for more information.