In Fireside Feelings, players sit by a cozy campfire and have conversations with strangers. Let’s unpack with Mashfiq Ahmed.

Upon opening the game, you’re greeted by a talking campfire named Spark who introduces you to how this game experience works. Spark also tells you the core philosophy of the Fireside Feelings: sharing emotions and experiences and growing together to foster empathy. This occurs by having conversations with real people in-game. However, these interactions are not live and instead you’re forming a conversation based on what a previous player (with an anonymous name) has said to Spark’s discussion prompts.

A smiling campfire holding a beverage, with conversation in bubbles above. The campfire called Spark says "This is what they wanted to share with you, communicating without speaking to you directly. And now, I'd like to ask you the same question. What beautiful emotion would you like to pass on to the next person who starts this game?" The response to send reads "I hope you find happiness and joy."

Before you go into this warm and welcoming experience, you first customize your own character. You have a variety of animals to choose from such as a penguin, an axolotl, and a bee.

I opted for the bear as it reminded me of one of my favourite childhood shows, Arthur. What I love about the character customization process is how it tells a story as you’re creating your avatar. When I first selected the bear, they were wearing a suit and looking restless in their office job. By the end, they threw out their business attire and made their way to the campfire.

A bear character in the character creator for Fireside Feelings.

In my first session, Spark brought up the topic of friendship. Sitting across from me was another player who was an orange fox in a blue hoodie. Spark first asked simple questions such as whether you prefer to have a large or small group of friends and when was the last time you made a genuine friend. This is what I expected Fireside Feelings to be like. However shortly after that, Spark started hitting me with deeper questions.

Our adorable talking campfire asked me if I had ever been in love with one of my friends and how that turned out. They asked me if I ever lost a friend and the story behind it. With a traditional video game, if a player is really engaged in it they might lean forward with their controller and really focus. It felt like I was having that moment but there was no need to physically lean in.

Fireside Feelings offered me a great moment of reflection. I began to think back to my past friendships and their highs and lows. I thought about how they turned out, why they turned out that way, and how it impacted me.

Throughout this entire process, the orange fox player was also offering lengthy responses to Spark’s questions on friendship. It was comforting to know that I was not alone and others had similar experiences with their friendships. The fox player shared a story about how they had feelings for one of their friends but it wasn’t mutual. They eventually stopped being so close but a few years later they rekindled their friendship for each other.

Even though I have no idea who this person is, I really felt for them. It was like reading an engaging story except a real human being was opening up to me. Through this brief experience, I fully felt Fireside Feelings’ philosophy of sharing and empathy.

Bear and fox character talking with Spark in Fireside Feelings, text reading "It was a sweet and tender moment, I'll remember it for a long time. But before you go to bed, you can take the camera I hid behind that rock, so you never forget that tonight, you had a real heart-to-heart moment with a stranger."

After several questions, Spark started to wrap up the conversation between me and my fox friend. It seemed like this would be the experience: enter the game, have a conversation around the campfire, rinse and repeat. But what happened next was a pleasant surprise.

The game provides you with a camera to take a snapshot to forever remember your time with the other player. Afterwards, the photo is added to a collection hanging above your character’s bed with string lights.

String lights holding a polaroid shot of a scene from the game Fireside Feelings.

You know that part in an open-world game where they finally let you explore said open world? After hanging up my photo, I felt something similar when I realized there were plenty more maps to have campfire conversations in. You can also customize the campfire settings by adding and moving various furniture and items! It felt like I had just scratched the surface with Fireside Feelings.

I was eager to have another conversation, something that I never thought my introverted self would ever say. Before diving in, the game asks what theme I want for the conversation: life goals, food, or everyday life.

I kind of wanted something light after that reflective conversation about friendships, so I opted for a food conversation. Coincidentally, the new stranger was also a fox character! And the warm conversations began again…

A fox who listens in Fireside Feelings with dialogue "I really enjoy any sort of ramen. I know it's a little bit of a basic answer, but I enjoy how versatile and flavourful it is! There's so many different styles and ways to prepare it too."

I was born and raised in New York City and spent my entire life there. The closest I ever got to camping was watching The Camping Episode of Spongebob Squarepants. While I imagine traditional camping is more intense (or should I say in-tents!), it was still great to experience the virtual comfort of chatting around a campfire.

In an age of AI, it’s also nice to know that you’re receiving genuine human responses in this game. We’re living in a world that is becoming more and more isolating but Fireside Feelings helps remind us that we’re not alone and there are others facing similar issues.

Since this game is very reliant on text, I appreciate certain accessibility features such as having a dyslexia friendly font which is something I have never seen before in a game.

A game like Fireside Feelings will naturally bring up concerns about safety and inappropriate messages. The game ensures you that all answers to questions are moderated and filtered before other players receive them. Additionally, I love how you can choose from 18 different content/trigger warnings to hide conversations for certain difficult topics. You can also tag your own responses with these warnings as well to help out future players.

Content warning filter from Fireside Feelings. showing options you can hide to "shield yourself". Triggers are communicated with icons.

After playing it, I can truly say that Fireside Feelings has had a positive impact on my mental health. I’ve been playing this game for about half an hour right before going to sleep and it’s provided me with a nice therapeutic experience. Its cute art style and atmosphere provides a comfortable, welcoming environment and the conversations with other players are helping me learn to open up more no matter how complex the topic is. My initial responses were brief, but as I kept playing they became more detailed.

Fireside Feelings does an amazing job at creating a virtual safe space where you feel compelled to share what’s on your mind. As a teacher who uses video games in the classroom, I’m always looking to find games for my students to try out. Fireside Feelings can be a great social-emotional learning tool for students and it provides all players with a sense of warmth and welcome. Its philosophy of sharing experiences and working together to foster empathy should be welcomed in all classrooms.

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