In Small Talk, you chit-chat your way through the end of the world

Even if the world’s going to end, the party must go on. In Small Talk, you wander around a shindig and chat with fellow revelers. Outside the windows, meteors streak across the sky. But rather than break down in an existential crisis, you instead engage in fleeting conversations, chit-chatting with people about their first loves, childhoods, and long-held secrets. It’s the debut from three-person studio Pale Room, and it’s planning on releasing for PC, Mac, and Linux in 2018.

Pale Room showed off Small Talk for the first time at Double Fine’s indie festival Day of the Devs this past weekend. I played through a few scenarios and watched others uncover different stories as well. It’s got a lovely crayon aesthetic, squirmy red and blue lines against a stark white background. Though you’re exploring a three-dimensional world, it looks like a flat cartoon. The childlike whimsy of characters’ designs match this aesthetic. One has bacon and eggs for a head, and when you chat with them, they reminisce about their eggy childhood, at home in a bird’s nest.