A game about writing nice letters to real people. Write and receive encouraging letters in a cozy room. Trade stickers and listen to chill music. We're all in this together. Sometimes all you need are a few kind words.
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How can I review a game like this? Can I write without confessing, endlessly confessing, an acknowledgement of the fundamental lack? A performance beyond the screen, a perforation between lives. I divulge to a blank ear; the inscrutability of the reception to the confessional performance destroys the art of speaking, annihilating the relationship I have to the audience I spill guts to. I exsanguinate myself in front of a crowd, and yet at the same time the crowd spills over and beyond themselves; a closeness only available via the anonymity. I love the sticker they send, the initials they sign off, the attempt to re-assure for the sake of reassurance. A beautiful moment, self-contained, the care for someone who cannot be realised, a love which precedes specificity.
The game upsets notions of amor-ity, an attempt to recenter agape, perhaps. Does it fail by the unacknowledged double-ness of all interaction, the razorblade that accompanies a revelation? Maybe. But it also attempts to illicit a compassion that is so often denied, something that would've failed in any larger project, in any less of a pinhole-d design.
Do I confess to someone? Or do I confess only to myself? Who else can love like a stranger?
The game upsets notions of amor-ity, an attempt to recenter agape, perhaps. Does it fail by the unacknowledged double-ness of all interaction, the razorblade that accompanies a revelation? Maybe. But it also attempts to illicit a compassion that is so often denied, something that would've failed in any larger project, in any less of a pinhole-d design.
Do I confess to someone? Or do I confess only to myself? Who else can love like a stranger?
more of a platform than a game but I still loved my time with it. it's just, so nice. receiving letters is nice and writing to others feels rewarding and, being someone who can struggle to find the right words, Kind Words kinda helped with that. I hope Kind Words made a lot of people's lives just a tiny bit better and I'm curious to see what Kind Words 2 will be like.