A paper airplane falls at my feet and inside is a note: “Even after everything that has happened… I never stopped loving you.” Kind Words 2 is full of touching and drifting remarks like this, written by other players and thrown into the wind for you to find. If you’re allergic to sensitivities or have a challenging time digesting the “healthy” gaming craze, you’ve probably already turned your back. But if your heart is open, even just a little, if you harbor a deep desire to peer through the cracks of the Internet and discover a little land of shared humanity, then Kind Words 2 can show you a glimpse of that toasty and welcoming world.
It’s a straightforward world of comfortable and colorful dioramas, where you move around as a big-eyed avatar wearing cute glasses or baggy sweatpants. Yes, there is a fashion store with a circumscribed collection of clothes. And your own house (a straightforward room with a window and a desk) can be decorated with items and decorations obtained as gifts from other players. But this isn’t really the type of game that involves investing in your character’s appearance. Rather, it is about the act of writing to others.
There are many ways to communicate. What will be familiar to players of the first Kind Words is sitting at a desk and answering “requests.” These are low notes that another player has posted, lamenting a recent breakup or venting about an irritating family member. You enter the answer to these questions and submit it. You can also suggest your worries and wait for advice and sympathy to come.
But these are only the most vanilla comebacks and comebacks. There is also a shop that specializes in asking for recommendations. What is good music in Spanish? (Ana Tijoux). What should I play on my browser during my lunch break? (Encrypted maps). Outside, you can write a sadness or a joke on one of those paper airplanes and send it into the ether. You can also have a fragmented “chat” with other avatars on the street, which again feels more like email than a real chat room (wandering characters are also not directly controlled by other players, but simply represent them).
I sent a letter in which I was concerned about my recent disastrous moving plan (the apartment I was supposed to move to collapsed). I received three replies – two of them were nice, but didn’t change my feelings much. However, the last message made me feel better simply because the reply came from someone in a very similar situation to me. Sometimes you just need to show that you are not alone. This is something Kind Words 2 does a lot.
There are even more places to share your thoughts. There’s a balmy spring there full of people peddling wisdom. And a bulletin board that simply asks for a description of the cat. There’s an open mic café where you can write poetry or listen to free verse from other people (think Comedy Night, but without the obnoxious offensiveness). An engaging feature is a substantial, fluffy monster called Wiggling Void, which will simply eat your words without recording or sharing them.
There is also a bench at the top of the mountain where you can look at the stars and make a wish. I found something particularly moving in this place. It was stimulating to sit here for a while, listening to the lo-fi sounds of the game and reading people’s desires. Their hopes for eternal work, a healthier body and more cats. Overwhelmingly, people crave connection: friendship, family, and romance. If taken into account It turns out more and more often that close relationships are the basis of a joyful lifeit makes sense that loneliness is the main source of pain.
In this and other respects, Kind Words 2 evokes many feelings. It’s like a balmy bath in other people’s emotions. Inevitably, some of you will sweat. It is cathartic and ephemeral at the same time and reminds me a bit of my feelings vox Thoraya’s pop videos. I’d call it therapeutic, but I don’t want to prescribe this game as a substitute for real human connection and support, even if it’s meant to be a soothing balm. Most of the connections and releases offered here are still better experienced in the real world, when talking to strangers or confiding worries to real friends (this is comforting, since Kind Words 2 will one day lose its player base – something hopefully not applicable in the real world world) in the near future).
This also raises some concerns about “toxic positivity.” You can see that some elements of the game are extremely cheerful, as if ordered. All hairstyles have names like “great”, “cheerful”, “desirable”, “neato” – you won’t find a “meh” hairstyle here. There is a “pop-up” in the square that asks a straightforward question every day to people gathered in the square. The last one read: “Pumpkin spice latte. What is her place in the world?” That’s why I started to wonder if the creators deliberately choose soft and uncontroversial topics (pineapple on pizza didn’t even make it). This fits into the idea of a space designed to avoid conflicts and malice. After all, the game is called “Kind Words 2,” not “Reddit 2.”
However, even though the framework seems almost repressively pleasant, it cannot be said that it is all that toxic. The notes you receive are often full of pain and trouble. People share thoughts of violence or painful memories. Many messages are problems that cannot be solved (at least not by you). These may include anxiety, fear, rejection, loss, and lack of friends. If you choose to answer these questions with a relentlessly positive attitude (“Don’t worry! Everything’s fine!”), it may not be truly helpful. But in my experience, most of the responses are, “It sucks, me too, lol.”
In other words, your requests and suggestions may be helpful in the low term. For years I have struggled to recognize the difference between “personal” thoughts and “private” thoughts. I still do it sometimes. But more and more I understand that sharing brain mess is actually a kind of social glue. This is just another way to practice the habit of timid self-revelation. It’s fun to throw paper airplanes! Even if doing it live is healthier.
When it comes to the responses you receive, it’s effortless to laugh off the truisms and platitudes that come to people’s minds when asked to sympathize with others. (“Everything will work out!”… “Lots more fish in the sea!”). There is a sense that there is an element of performance in some of the responses. But it is also arduous to assess the author’s level of authenticity from behind the avatar. If you can give people the benefit of the doubt, even the cliché can lift people’s spirits. And I say this as a person who hates stereotypes, and yet he felt their value firsthand.
About 22 years ago, I was sitting in a shop on a city street, feeling miserable and undetectable. My friends seemed to have evaporated, depression was lurking at the door. As people passed by, one woman in a sari smiled and looked into my eyes. She said, “It’s not the end of the world.” And then she disappeared into the streets. She was a stranger, offering only straightforward, common words of encouragement. If I remember correctly, it even irritated me a little. Why was she so damn cheerful?
And yet… the spell of sadness was broken. Her words were enough for me to know that I was seen and noticed, that not every passerby was oblivious to my sadness. I got up and continued my day. Sometimes we feel like relationships with others need to be long-term to be meaningful. But many years later, I still think about that random woman who gave me a smile on a gray day. I met her for less than five seconds.
Relationships don’t just include those with whom we drink pumpkin spice lattes, those with whom we work, take to the movies, or plan a trip. An anecdote you share with a train conductor, a little tirade about your local authority with a fellow dog walker carries weight, or even (heaven forbid) a joke you hear from a taxi driver. Kind Words 2 isn’t about making friends (it admits that when it asks you never to identify yourself). It’s not even about the community, as every live service game clearly wants to serve its own purposes. It’s just about passing someone on the street, seeing their pain and telling them it’s not the end of the world.
