I bought Kind Words and Kind Words 2 in a bundle yesterday. So, no, I haven’t put a large amount of time into these games, but I’m gonna talk about them anyway because I’ve already had such a wonderful experience!

Kind Words

The first game came out in 2019 and features a very simple premise. You read anonymous letters from other people with their thoughts and struggles, and you anonymously respond with a nice message, kind words if you will. The game was a hit and I can only imagine that coming out just before the COVID-19 global pandemic, it gave a lot of people an outlet they may not have had otherwise. The developers said something like 5 million messages had been sent through it by the time they published the second game. That’s so many!

I spent maybe ten minutes in this version. It ran pretty rough on my aging Surface Pro 7. That’s pretty much all there is to the game. You can also attach stickers to letters and receive stickers on responses to you. As you get more stickers, you can use those stickers to decorate your in-game writing space, of which there are a few to choose from. You can also send out paper airplanes with shorter thoughts that don’t need a response. People regularly just sound out well wishes, but also use this function to create chain letters, it’s a neat emergent behavior.

Kind Words is very cute, and I cried a bit playing it. But after ten minutes, I figured I should check out the second one.

Kind Words 2

The sequel launched earlier this year and it’s more of a good thing, and it somehow runs better on my laptop than the first did! The core of the game is identical. You’re still reading people’s worries and responding to them. There is new stuff to do, but it is all based around this same mechanic. I don’t use “but” as a bad thing, actually. The conceit works, and it works well, and it lends itself to other uses as well.

If you’ve played the first game, Kind Words 2 will import your data. All your messages you’ve sent and received and favorited will be here. In fact, Kind Words 1 will also retain everything you’ve done in Kind Words 2. You can hop back and forth between the two games without issue actually. The server backend is identical, so when you’re doing the letter writing you are talking to the same people no matter which version they or you are playing. That’s so wonderful and doesn’t lock anyone out from the experience. Right now Kind Words is $5 USD on Steam and Kind Words 2 is $20 USD. So if you don’t have the money for 2, you can still get the experience for a quarter of the price. Honestly a really wonderful move by the developer.

There are things that are exclusive to Kind Words 2. You can write and share poetry and poetry prompts at the coffee shop. You can go to the media store and ask for and give out recommendations for books, shows, games, etc. The chain letters have become a full feature now, separate from the airplanes. At the echo hole, you can put in one thought and receive the previous thought that was sent. I had a really emotional moment last night when I sent out a heartfelt and painful thought into the echo hole, and the previous thought someone sent was so so so reassuring and uplifting. I cried a lot.

In fact I cried a lot just eavesdropping on people’s short conversations too. Conversations are a new mechanic where you can talk to people on the street in the game. You get a short space to write out questions and responses. It lasts for about three exchanges and then ends. And they’re fully public. I think they allow for more detail than the main letter writing mechanic, and so people end up sharing some really vulnerable things and they get such kind conversations out of it. I cried a lot here too.

There’s a few more new features to the sequel that I won’t go over, because I don’t want to wear myself out writing, but the last one I’ll mention is wishing upon a star. People here are so so so vulnerable. Their deepest wishes about who they want to be, how they want to live their lives, wanting to get over deep pain. It all resonated so much. And I sobbed here too after putting my own wish into the night sky. Someone will read it, and they will feel it, and that’s all I need sometimes.

Both games are visually cute and simple with a constant low-fi soundtrack to help one feel relaxed and safe. It’s, as the kids say, got the vibes. Even as I write this review, I’ve got the game running in the background listening to the music, sometimes alt-tabbing over to read a letter or respond to a conversation.

I can definitely see myself starting either of these games up pretty regularly and just talking to random people and putting my own fears, worries, and concerns out there. This is such a great concept and it really expands the concept of what a video game can and should be.