- 15,000 Cats! - 5 February 2026
Short version:New screen savers with playlist! Significant optimizations! Free KW2 demo!Less-short version:You keep putting so much creative, joyful and sincere stuff in Kind Words 1 & 2 that we just had to celebrate it with new features.Specifically, you've now written over 15,000 cat names and descriptions!You've also written a staggering ONE MILLION airplanes! Arguably, that's a bigger milestone, but it's not as cute as cats and Luigi has already drawn that sweet cat banner. So we'll lead with the cats.The theme for this update is screen savers: bask in the comforting presence of fellow humans while putting out minimal effort. We've added new ways to just be in Kind Words 2.A highlight, obviously, is the new cat screen saver. The old cat saver in the plaza has been replaced with this atmospheric cat browser:Another exciting milestone: 100,000 links in the chain forest! So there's a n…
- Fix for older windows computers - 20 November 2025
The last update prevented some windows computers with graphics card drivers older than 5 years or so from starting the game. Sorry about that! As always, please let me know if you find new problems! Now back to working on a much more fun update I'm hoping to finish next month! -Ziba
- Conversation Management! Glitter Management! Bug fixes! - 9 October 2025
So there's this big wacky bug affecting almost every game ever published with Unity (CVE-2025-59489). That's why you may have noticed everybody scrambling to do updates. Me included!But I figured since upgrading to a new version of Unity requires me to spend a bunch of time re-testing everything, I should throw in a few improvements while I'm at it.Also, I love you and want you to have nice things.Changes!Conversation Seed Management - A conversation seed is something you said to someone on the street that multiple other people can respond to. There's a new settings button in the bottom right when you're talking to someone. That button will open a menu with a list of your active conversation seeds. You can use that menu to end any topics that you just don't want to talk about anymore.Glitter Management -There's a new checkbox under Settings->Graphics to toggle in-game glitter. This is a…
- New sticker and bundle to celebrate a new friend! - 12 June 2025
Hello Kind Friends!Luigi just drew a lovely new campfire sticker for Kind Words and I mashed the right keyboard buttons to make it go in to circulation! We did it to celebrate the launch of Fireside Feelings, a game that I am personally very excited about!I've been fortunate to get some backstage glimpses of the game over the last year of its development and to converse with the developers, Vidu and Maxime. They've made a heartfelt gem that, like Kind Words, is rooted in anonymous exchanges of earnest messages between players. Their approach takes you on a more guided conversational path which I found led to valuable introspection.I know you didn't come here for a sales pitch. I'm just touched by their game and expect you will be too. We put together a discount bundle so both game development teams can lose money! If you already own Kind Words this bundle will get you a discount on Fire…
- Tutorial update, journal UI fix, better corruption handling, etc. - 25 March 2025
New invitation for players to customize their character during the initial tutorial. Rebalanced distribution of opportunities to start new conversations. Fixed a bug that would show the wrong menu if you opened the journal and the closed it really fast. Improved handling of corrupted cache files. Upgraded the engine to Unity version 6 from Unity version 2022. I'm not sure Unity knows how numbers work because that's would seem to imply I've reduced Unity by 2,016 Unities. I'm sure it will be fine. We didn't need all those Unity's anyways. I think. More importantly, checkout our sweet new trailer. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2118120/view/508449788991111875
- Kind Words 2 has been nominated for a BAFTA! (So we made a cute new trailer) - 25 March 2025
Kind Words 2 has been nominated for a BAFTA in the Games Beyond Entertainment category! I won't speak for the rest of our team, but I am absolutely not above the need for external validation. The loving responses from players and now the esteemed BAFTA judges means a lot. Knowing that people are enjoying the game motivates us to continue pouring our hearts in to watering this little garden of good vibes. To celebrate, we've put together this new trailer made up of players' own feelings about Kind Words 2 taken right from Steam reviews. Maybe you'll find your own quote there ;) Enjoy the trailer, enjoy the game and enjoy watching the BAFTAs!
- Override Override - 4 March 2025
The music mood override button's override choice was being overridden, so I overwrote it. (He said in an over wrought sentence). Thanks to discord user Beno988 for the heads up. Also, Kind Words 2 just got nominated for a BAFTA! Which is really because it's full of amazing players who make the game a great place to be. And those players are you, so it's kind of like YOU just got nominated for a BAFTA! Way to go! Treat yo' self.
- Music Encore! New songs, new controls, new sticker! - 13 February 2025
Did you know that every song in Kind Words 2 has four moods? As you move from home to city, to café to mountain top, each song changes with the feel of the location. Drums morph, timbres shift, vibes slide. Did you notice that even the menu sound effects change pitch to match the key of the current song? Who does that?! Clark Aboud does that! And now he's made 4 new songs! Golden Dreamer Cloud Watching Cerulean Ampersand And song each has four moods. Moods and tracks that you can now flip through with the new "Music Control Panel with Frog Head" (patent pending). They're going in to the soundtrack DLC too, of course. He even wrote a little ditty that the train plays when it pulls in to the station. And so we honor Clark in the most Kind Wordsiest of fashions… with the new Clark sticker. We hope the new music and moods helps with your mood today. Cheers, Ziba & Luigi
- Return of the Banini and Conversation Rebalance - 10 January 2025
Reworked outdoor conversation distribution. There are now color coded badges that indicate whether you are continuing a conversation you started (purple), continuing a conversation someone else started (red), or starting a new conversation (gold). This plus background changes should even out the opportunities to start new conversations. It may take a little while for the new balance to settle in. More outdoor conversation hover context to tell you what will happen if you interact with someone. Fixed the Banini Slug sticker decoration not showing up. WAKE UP BANINI! Improved multiple offline behaviors Fixed a bug preventing the outdoor button from being highlighted during the initial game tutorial
- Private journal. Shared inspiration. - 19 December 2024
Kind Words 2 is great for sharing your thoughts with caring strangers, but sometimes you just need to talk to yourself. Now Kind Words 2 has a private journal. A journal is a great way put your day or your life in to perspective. Forming your stresses in to words can calm you down. And good days with good feelings deserve to be commemorated. This part of Kind Words 2 is for your eyes only. We don't store it on our servers. The optional steam cloud storage is encrypted before uploading. If you need a little inspiration to write, we've added a spot where you can browse and share writing prompts to get you going. Kind Words 2 invites you to bring your whole, complex, beautiful, messy self. And now there's a place for the parts that are too detailed or too personal to share with others. Yours, Ziba & Luigi
- More stickers? Yes, please. - 27 November 2024
Shakespeare died in 1616. But before he did, he wrote several plays that people enjoyed. However, he did not leave behind very many cute stickers. I won't lie: it impressed me a little bit that he could just give up like that. Like he didn't really care about his legacy. Respect. We're not that strong. We need your approval. We've added a bunch of adorable new stickers to Kind Words 2. Enjoy!
- End of chain marker - 1 November 2024
Tiny update today: I've added a divider line that shows when you've viewed a whole chain in the chain forest and it's starting over. Just a little quality of life improvement to throw out while we're working on bigger stuff. Other work this week was more server side focused. Like making the conversation system more efficient to handle the 40,000 conversations people have started. Cheers!
- Ella the Mail Deer is now 2% more polite and 5% more helpful. Plus fixes. - 25 October 2024
Ella was embarrassed to realize she had not been thanking people when they reported requests in their inbox and has renewed her efforts to be a great hostess. She's also going to be a lot clearer in explaining that the "Lifetime train pass for all cool people" is in the store marked "Books & Stuff". Also fixed in this update are multiple timing issues which could result in overlapping UI and problems listening to conversations. Cheers!
- The soundtrack DLC is here! - 18 October 2024
I'm delighted to let you know the soundtrack to Kind Words 2 is now available for purchase as DLC on Steam! To celebrate, I've created a new Steam bundle that includes both Kind Words games and both Kind Words soundtracks at a discount. I'm so grateful to Clark Aboud for sharing his talents as composer on Kind Words and Kind Words 2 and I've invited him to tell you a bit about his work in his own words: A Letter from Clark The first Kind Words soundtrack was a beautiful and appreciated (thank you Ziba & Luigi) opportunity to just write music freely (fitting, for a game about writing freely), so getting the chance to step back into that comfortable isometric room and out into the big new city has been an exciting one. The subtitle of lofi city pop was a ticket to a wonderful world of music that I will ever be an admirer and student of, with its dense harmonies, bright grooves, and toppes…
- FPS Limiter. Smaller. Faster. Less explody. - 15 October 2024
New: FPS Limiter in Settings->Display. Options: none, 30 ,60. New: Escape or Gamepad B will close the map menu. Better: Optimized some game assets to be 60MB smaller on disk and use a bit less ram. Fixed: Removed multiple cases where button pressing during scene changes could trigger WACKY STUFF. As a reward for reading these little patch notes, I'm gonna slip some fun news in here first: The soundtrack for Kind Words 2 just got approved for sale on Steam. Look for it this week!
- Faster, more reliable (?) scene transitions - 12 October 2024
Today's challenge has been tracking down the cause of the reports I'm getting that sometimes the game gets stuck when transitioning between spaces. The tricky part is that it never happens to me! So today I rewrote a good deal of the code that handles transitioning between scenes. If it's not more reliable, it is at least more careful and will hopefully leave much better clues as to the source of the problem. A nice side bonus is that it's much faster to wander through the chain forest now. Thanks for playing and for the patience of those affected by the transitioning bug. Cheers, Ziba
- Fixes: subscribed poem viewing, reporting, deleting and more - 12 October 2024
Viewing subscribed poems no longer cuts off longer poems (and media recommendations) Fixed multiple ui bugs related to reporting and deleting messages Reporting a letter you have received will now give you an option to delete that letter Fixed a problem which could make the settings menu appear at the same time as other menus Fixed a bug that occurred when you clicked on a person after finishing a conversation with them Fixed a bug which could make an npc walk creepily backward while staring at you Much love once more for all the reports. Moving ever forward to perfection!
- Thank you for an amazing launch! - 11 October 2024
Thank you all so much for making the launch of Kind Words 2 wonderful! For years Luigi and I have been wandering around this city by ourselves. Like kids who snuck in to an amusement park when none of the rides are running. We've spent so long walking through while imagining what it would be like full of people. What will be most popular? How busy will it feel? What ride will go off the rails? We had a few brilliant glimpses of the future during our playtesting, but this Monday when the doors opened, Kind Words 2 truly began not just for our players, but for us developers as well. Everything feels so alive now! Since Monday, players have started over 11,000 conversations with each other! We had a feeling chatting would be popular. More surprising is the 10,000 messages you've written in the chain forest! In less than 5 days! Judging by the sheer volume of nice messages floating about, t…
- Bug fixes and traps - 10 October 2024
New: You can delete messages you receive in your inboxes. Fixed: Multiple issues viewing inboxes while offline. Fixed: The favorites button getting stuck down while viewing wishes Trap: Several better debugging tools to help me figure out some mysteries. Like why loading the chain forest locks up the game for some people. If you encounter something that makes you have to force quit the game: A) I'm very sorry. B) If you restart the game to submit feedback and you choose to attach an anonymized log, I'll also get the log for the previous session where the bad thing happened. Thanks!
- stuck title screen fix and more - 10 October 2024
Sorry, some funny business was getting people stuck on the title screen. Not really that funny if you can't start the game you just bought. Thanks for sticking with us. Fixed multiple causes of title soft locks. Fixed paper airplanes knocking you out of your chair. (In your own home! Rude!) Fixed text resetting to default if you cancel writing something, then un-cancel, then write more and then add a sticker but then cancel adding the sticker. Whew. Thanks so much for all your reports in-game and on discord. I couldn't shake these things out without you!
