Kind Words 2 News

[p]Short version:[/p]

• [p]New screen savers with playlist! [/p]
• [p]Significant optimizations! [/p]
• [p]Free KW2 demo![/p]

[p][/p][p]Less-short version:[/p][p][/p][p]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.[/p][p][/p][p]Specifically, you've now written over 15,000 cat names and descriptions![/p][p][/p][p]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.[/p][p][/p][p]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.[/p][p][/p][p]A highlight, obviously, is the new cat screen saver. The old cat saver in the plaza has been replaced with this atmospheric cat browser:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Another exciting milestone: 100,000 links in the chain forest! So there's a new viewer where you could theoretically sit and watch every single topic and response go by.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The screensavers from KW1 that let you view airplanes and favorites inside your rooms have also been updated and brought over.[/p][p][/p][p]My favorite part is that when you want to float in the warm ocean of 7 million player submissions, you don't have to go running around town picking and choosing. Just open on the new Screen Saver Tour right from your home.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]You get to setup a playlist and configure your trip just right.[/p][p][/p][p]Oh, I did some other work too, like make the game use 25-50% less RAM when running and start up faster too.[/p][p][/p][p]It's probably time I mention that I stealth launched a free demo for KW2 about a month ago. I wanted to make sure it was stable before making a fuss over it. The demo includes the home exterior space conversations and airplanes as well as the media recommendation room. So, yeah! Go tell your friends that they can come chat with kind strangers for free right now![/p][p][/p][p]Free Kind Words 2 Demo[/p][p][/p][p]Thanks for being you and contributing to our community. See you in the next update. (Or in the comments or on discord.)[/p][p][/p][p]Yours,[/p][p]Ziba[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

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

[p]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![/p][p][/p][p]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.[/p][p]Also, I love you and want you to have nice things.[/p][p][/p][h2]Changes![/h2][p]Conversation Seed Management - [/p][p]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.[/p][p][/p][p]Glitter Management -[/p][p]There's a new checkbox under Settings->Graphics to toggle in-game glitter. This is an accessibility feature we had working in KW1 and somehow missed in KW2. Sorry! It's there now. Thanks to the users who reported it.[/p][p][/p][p]More Graceful Errors -[/p][p]If something goes wrong when you hit the send letter button (which is pretty rare!), it will now go back to the letter you were writing instead of a blank, rage inducing, page.[/p][p][/p][p]Yours,[/p][p]Ziba[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[p]Hello Kind Friends![/p][p]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! [/p][p]We did it to celebrate the launch of Fireside Feelings, a game that I am personally very excited about![/p][p]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. [/p][p]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.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]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 Fireside Feelings:[/p][p]Fireside Feelings & Kind Words Bundle![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Also, they put Ella the Mail Deer in their game! Go get your extra fix of Ella! [/p][p]Or just enjoy the free new sticker! Or not! I'm not the boss of you![/p][p][/p][p]Yours,[/p][p]Ziba & Luigi[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

• 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