- Celebrating 1,000,000 airplanes with a free Kind Words 2 demo! - 5 February 2026
Kind Words 2 DemoDear Kind Words Players,You've written a million paper airplanes! Each one with a unique, sincere message from a real person gifted to our community! We are humbled and thankful for your continued commitment to lifting each other up through our little game.Kind Words is such an intentionally chill experience, that people will ask me if it's still active. That makes sense because we intentionally kept numbers out of our design so you're never stressing about meta stuff. We just want you to think your thoughts and be good to each other. But, yes! It's still active. The numbers keep going up! We're at around 7.3 million total user submissions over the last 6 years.The biggest numbers (airplanes, letters and responses) are shared between Kind Words 1 and Kind Words 2. They use the same server and you play using the same account on both. Some of the KW2 specific numbers also…
- Fix for the Fix! (Stop crashing on startup on older windows computers) - 12 November 2025
With many thanks and apologies to the users with older computers who reported that the last update stopped Kind Words from working on their computers. There was problem with the new default configuration that came with the updated engine I use. Now I gotta go do this same fix for Kind Words 2, but I'm also in the middle of adding some cool new screensaver features to it (which I haven't told anybody about) and I have to either ship them early, or do a bunch of work to hide them so I can put out this hot fix. Decisions, decisions. Anyways, nobody told me I CAN'T use minor patch notes as a personal blog, so that's where we're at. Cheers.
- Fix for Unity bug CVE-2025-59489 - 10 October 2025
Updated to fix a security issue found in all older versions of the Unity game engine.
- 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…
- New Screensaver! New Sticker! - 13 February 2025
We've just added a fourth screensaver. This one is for displaying the airplanes and messages that you've marked as your favorites. Add some ambiance to your life and relax in the company of the finest words of your choosing. We've also added a Clark sticker! The Kind Words composer, Clark Aboud, just added a bunch of new songs to Kind Words 2 so we put a sticker in there. And, as you know, any sticker added to Kind Words 2 also goes right back to you here in the original. We've also simplified the title screen a little, removing a couple social media links. (I'm not really twitch streaming much anyways.) And put in a link to KW2 at the bottom. There's also a new one-time-only popup letting people know that Kind Words 2 exists. If you're someone who reads these patch notes, that probably seems unnecessary to you. But you are an attentive and appreciated gamer. Cheers, Ziba & Luigi
- Even more free stickers! - 27 November 2024
I was planting tulip bulbs in the back of my house and I heard a rustling under the back steps. I kicked the steps a bit to scare away whatever cat or racoon was partying under there. Nothing ran out, but it got real quiet for a second and then there was this gentle popping sound. Whatever it was... it weren't there when I looked. But it did leave these neat little stickers behind! So we stuck them in the game. Enjoy!
- Kind Words is Now Connected to Kind Words 2 - 7 October 2024
Maybe you've noticed I've been updating Kind Words a lot lately. It's all been in preparation for today! Kind Words 2 is now available! What does this change for the original Kind Words? More players More stickers The sequel contains a remaster of the original that runs on the very same server. That means every new Kind Words 2 player is automatically a Kind Words player. You will be seeing their requests, responses and airplanes! Because of you, Kind Words is such an amazing community. We wouldn't dream of splitting it. Two games, one warm internet hug. Also stickers. Every new sticker for Kind Words 2 is also coming to Kind Words. The first batch already made its way in to circulation during the Kind Words 2 playtests. But today a new batch of 12 stickers will start making their way to your inboxes. What's the difference between the two games? Most of the design of Kind Words 2 was in…
- Sticker Shrink and Favorites Fix - 4 October 2024
Stickers: Now that there are SEVENTY FIVE stickers in the game, we have to be a little more mindful about the space on disk and memory that they take up. This update uses some smarter compression options that won't change how they look but will reduce the game's build size by about 80mb. Favorites: Thanks to the multiple users who reported a softlock if you tried to view the favorites page before you've ever favorited anything. The old favorites system used to take a little time to check if you have no favorites. In a recent update I made it super fast to check your favorite count. Yay! Except that the system was expecting at least one frame of delay when checking. I made it so fast it broke. I'm the greatest?
- Fixed a missing stickers bug - 30 September 2024
With apologies to the many users who got a little scared when their stickers disappeared, I present this humble bug fix. Your stickers were never really gone. They were always in your hearts. But I understand that you wanted them on your screen too. So that's where they should be now. Also, things get less weird now if your internet keeps turning on and off. That's what the whole sticker bug was about. The game would lose connection with the server and the game's response was not "Remain calm. it will be ok. These things happen." it was "Forget all stickers". Should be better now. Yours, Ziba
- Stickers soon! New friends soon! Sooooon! - 27 September 2024
Remember that period of a few years when there were no new stickers for Kind Words? Those were dark times. I'm glad we all made it safely here to the future. A future where we dropped new stickers last month and are now teasing even more for next month. TEASE! Consider yourself teased. These 12 new stickers are coming to all Kind Words 1 players for free so that you can swap them with Kind Words 2 players when that game comes out on October 7th. Yours, Ziba & Luigi
- New Stickers are Here! - 15 August 2024
You may have already noticed new stickers sliding in to your inbox. You may also have noticed a ton of new players writing a lot more responses this week. Kind Words activity has always been strong, but lately it's is doing numbers it hasn't seen in a few years. That's because we've opened up Kind Words 2 playtesting to everybody for a limited time. And since they're on the same server, Kind Words is extra busy. So it's a fantastic time to jump back in and share some kind letters. Show the new arrivals just how gosh darn caring you can be. Also, come on over and play the demo for KW2! Yours, Ziba & Luigi
- Little fixes. Hidden stickers. - 4 August 2024
Thanks for the bug reports! The sticker name "SuperMegaUltraMan" was too long to fit on in the space provided. Exporting your message history could get stuck exporting....FOREVER. Some new stickers are hiding inside the game binary waiting to be released by Kind Words 2 players who will be talking to you soon. Yes, they would also just be downloaded from the Kind Words server if they weren't inside the game, but I wanted to put them out to everybody via Steam first cause they have big strong servers and I have to be a little careful with mine.
- Slicker Sticker Picker - 26 July 2024
The slicker sticker picker is also quicker. Don't worry, the cute sticker sheets are still there when you're decorating your room. But when you're choosing which sticker to send to somebody, there's a much faster way to review your adorable inventory. But why, 5 years after launch and a year since the last update, would we push a seemingly small quality-of-life update? A) Because we love you B) It's actually a much bigger update Kind Words 2 is coming and it will run on the same server as Kind Words. People playing KW2 will be sending you letters with new stickers they find. That means the original Kind Words needs to be able to understand what the heck is attached to those letters. Also, since there's no room associated with the new sticker, Kind Words needs a new interface for you to enjoy the sticker and to choose it if you want to gift it to someone else. Therefore: The behind the s…
- New Stickers Teaser - 6 July 2024
We like you too much to stop adding free things to Kind Words. And so I find myself sitting on a pile of 20+ new stickers that Luigi made which will soon find their way in to your letters. We actually made all these stickers for Kind Words 2 (you did wishlist Kind Words 2, right?). But since Kind Words and Kind Words 2 players can send letters to each other, everybody gets all the stickers! What are these stickers, exactly? I'm not telling. We have to keep some mystery in our relationship. But here's a teaser: Kind Words will get these new stickers but, and for this I apologize, only Kind Words 2 gets the cool new rooms that go along with the stickers. I know, I know. I don't really want to create fomo. That's clearly not our brand. But we gotta save SOME shiny new stuff just for #2. In summary, hang tight, do nothing and a batch of sweet new stickers will start showing up on your lette…
- Kind Words 2 free demo now! This week only! - 5 February 2024
Wanna be a little less alone today? We'd love for you to drop in and say hi through the Kind Words 2 demo. We've put together a slice of the upcoming game for everybody to try out! Have short chats with other players in the neighborhood! Go in to the bookstore and swap media recommendations! Hop in to the clothes store and try on all the (totally free) clothes! Give names to strange cats! Join the 100s of people already playing the demo, but don't wait too long. This demo will only be available this week to celebrate Steam Next Fest. Kind Words 2 Store Page Yours, Ziba & Luigi
- Announcing: Kind Words 2 (lofi city pop) - 6 December 2023
Dear Kind Words Players, We invited you to discuss your worries with strangers. It could have gone badly. But, you wrote each other millions of uplifting letters. You made Kind Words an unlikely success. So we're inviting you back for more.... More ways to talk to people. More ways to be creative. More ways to be yourself. Coming in 2024! Wishlist and signup for the playtest today! For more thrilling details, please hop on over to the new Kind Words 2 page. It would mean the world to us if you wishlist it today. Thanks. Since this news item is specifically going out to Kind Words players, I want to explain how we're NOT splitting the community and how we WILL be supporting the original Kind Words. Along side all its glorious new features, Kind Words 2 includes a remade version of the original game that is fully backwards compatible. Kind Words and Kind Words 2 players can send letters b…
- Our Favorite Update! - 11 September 2023
Ok, now this is just getting silly. Kind Words has been out for four years and people are still writing THOUSANDS OF LETTERS EVERY DAY. Well then, I guess we'll keep updating it! Thanks to the big server overhaul we did last month, we can add something people have been asking for from the very beginning: Favorites! You can now curate a collection of your favorite airplanes and letters that you have received. See an airplane you want to hold on to? Click favorite. Don't worry, You're making a copy. Its good vibes will still float on to the next person. Really love a response you got and don't want to dig through your whole inbox to re-read it every time? Favorite it! To read your favorites, just click the new heart icon. Currently you are limited to having 500 favorites. We will be looking at feedback, player behavior and server load to see if that's the right limit. You can always remov…
- Scheduled Downtime: 8/8/23 11pm GMT-4 for 4 hours - 2 August 2023
Short version: Gotta turn off Kind Words for a few hours to update the server. Also, there's a small, fun update to the game coming soon. Long version: If you've been following along with our folksy little updates all these years, you may be familiar with this theme: We didn't expect Kind Words to be popular and I didn't design the server thinking lots of people would actually use it. That caused some growing pains for all of us. A few years ago I started rewriting the server for better performance and extensibility. I don't want to jinx it, but I've actually tested the new server for high loads unlike when we launched the current one. It's going to take a few hours to do the upgrade because our database is around 7 gigabytes in size and I don't want to lose any of your messages. So first I'm gonna backup the existing database, which takes about a half hour. Then I need to convert the d…
- Kind Words Vinyl Record! - 28 October 2022
Players have been asking for a record for ages. Sorry it took us a while to get here, but we wanted do it right. Records are about the music (and you'll get Clark's beautiful tracks), but they're also a keepsake. A physical manifestation of your personal connection to a feeling you love. That's why we crafted this as a little bundle of the best parts of Kind Words made real. That's why you get: Clark Aboud's lo-fi & dreamy tracks A choice of "Pink and Violet Firefly Swirl" or "Midnight Purple Mixtape" Two postcards to write nice letters on and send to people! A sheet of stickers from the game! You could put them on the postcards! It's like you're playing the game in real life!!! Heartfelt letters from the team! A portion of every record sold will be donated to the National Alliance of Mental Illness of Massachusetts. Bring a little joy in to your life AND those around you! https://manaw…
- 3 years! - 8 July 2022
This week marks 3 years since Kind Words launched! That's 3 years and over 5 million letters and airplanes shared between strangers lifting each other up. While it's amazing to us that Kind Words found an audience, it's shocking and humbling to us that you're all still here! After all this time, you're still writing thousands of messages every day! I still can't believe we get to facilitate this wacky experiment-turned-way-of-life. Luigi and I try to honor that privilege by moderating the game 7 days a week. Being such a small team, we're especially grateful to the community members in game, discord and forums who help with questions. One funny side effect of the never ending parade of new users is that statistically unlikely problems become, well, more likely! Lightning strikes, cosmic radiation, internet gremlins, literal bugs inside computers. None of those seemed important to prepar…
