Kind Words 2 Playtest
Introduction
Kind Words 2 is a gem. It sets you in a digital world where you can send and receive letters anonymously to other people. It is not really as much of a game as social media.
Except it isn’t gamified at all and attempts to contribute to a positive environment. The point of the game is to provide a medium that allows people to express themselves and genuinely communicate with others.
Player Mechanics1
- Psychology: The character is more you than the digital avatar.
- Agency: The choices you make in interacting with the game.
- Emotion: Feelings…?
Game Mechanics
Sending Messages: The key mechanism is being able to send messages that can be accepted or discarded by other people. In Kind Words 2, you can write poetry at a salon, ask for recommendations at a record shop, leave life advice at a mountain sauna, or rant into a void. These different environments give the player specific contexts for communicating with others.
Receiving Messages: The flip side of sending messages is being able to receive them. Players can view messages by heading to those specific areas. My favorite way of receiving messages is at the mountaintop, where it scrolls through the different wishes people have left up there.
Player Customization: Allows you to create a digital avatar that can walk around the set-out environments and talk to people.
Lo-fi BGM: Sets a calming and soothing atmosphere for the game. The game wouldn’t be the same if it was just rock music.
Stickers: As far as the developers went in adding gamification to the game. You can collect and receive stickers by sending messages to people.
Themes and Player Experience
Connection: The game, like any other form of social media, is meant to connect its users. Kind Words 2 accomplishes this in a non-exploitative manner by creating an open and curated space for communication.
Expression: Since there really isn’t any digital player expression. Expression here means to be yourself, not even the character, but yourself. Responding and replying to messages by being authentic.
Reflection: The very nature of the game makes it a reflective experience. How would I react to that situation? How do I relate to that event personally?
Conclusion
Kind Words 2 is the first game that I reviewed, which can’t be thoroughly analyzed by a Suitsian framing. Games without clear goals, like The Stanley Parable and Kind Words 2 are still sold on Steam alongside others.
So, what makes them games? I won’t go too in-depth, but I believe that they are games in the sense that they allow agency and provide a virtual reality/experience. Essentially, the game provides a framework within which players can act, even if those actions don’t lead to a defined “win” state.
That seems like an adequate analysis to me because it fits what makes Kind Words 2 a good game: “the feeling of absurd care and kindness that we have become accustomed against.” The game being played here is one that everyone has played: “social communication and interaction”. In Kind Words 2, communication is played with a form of radical care and understanding.
I want to finish by addressing the critique of: “it’s not real.” And to that, I say it’s a fair point. The anonymity and the limitations of not “fully interacting” with another person can be seen as the player is limited to only forms of messaging as communication. But I think that is a feature and not a bug because sometimes it is hard to show up in reality and the world.
However, as with all games that offer a virtual experience, it takes a bit of mindfulness to remind yourself that it is not the “real world” and to know when your stay is up. In either case, Kind Words 2 serves as a beacon of human kindness and a great game to pick up if you need a reminder of the good humans can provide each other.
One interesting insight I’ve come to is that games don’t necessarily have a predefined aesthetic. Their aesthetic is more about what we interpret and play them for. For instance, League of Legends can be played for self-expression, fellowship, or fantasy, but it primarily incentivizes domination.2
If you want to play the game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2118120/Kind_Words_2_lofi_city_pop/