izigame.me

Kind Words
"There, there, Stephanie, Mummy will kiss it better and everything will be okay..."
This is a "game" that basically gives you a shameless excuse to be nice to people for no reason other than just because you can -- and that alone makes it a virtual outcast in the toxic, hate-fuelled quagmire we know and tolerate as modern gaming. "You mean...be nice to people?! Without some sort of cash incentive?! Why?!" Because the world's a depressing abyss of misery on the best of days, and behaving like a decent human being might make for a pleasant change of pace. So what's it all about then?
You inhabit a dorky-looking avatar who spends their days sitting about in a brightly-coloured room. If green makes you nauseous, and blue makes you depressed, you can change the colour of the room, but there's no escaping the room. (Sounds promising already, right?) Every so often a deer wearing a postman's hat will shove its head through the room's only window, and vomit mail onto the desk. This collection of half-chewed letters contains an assortment of issues, dramas, problems, and conundrums facing other Kind Words players. You shuffle the deck until you happen across something you might be able to help with, and you write a short missive offering support, commiserations, condolences, sympathy, suggestions, solutions, and other things of a positive and inspiring nature. (Remember, the game's called "Kind Words" not "Spiteful Misanthrope Merry-Go-Round From Hell" so, you know... don't be a terrible person.)
If the person on the other end of your helpful message appreciates what you have to say, they can send you a gift in the form of a decoration for your room. It might be a plush toy, a framed painting, a desktop ornament, or a pot plant. The different-coloured rooms each have their own collection of decorations, so if you're especially helpful, you can acquire entire sets.
Likewise, if YOU have some issues on which you'd like a third-party perspective, you too can violently regurgitate your inner-most thoughts and feelings into the lap of random internet strangers. Unlike the real world, most of the people who populate Kind Words won't laugh scornfully at your misfortunes and then publish them on Instagram. They probably won't engineer miracles for you either, but they will provide a sympathetic ear, and sometimes that's all you really need.
It's important to note Kind Words isn't a messaging app. You can't hold conversations, nor can you stalk other participants because you believe you're fated to be together and they should come and live with you for the rest of their natural lives. That would be creepy and quite possibly illegal. It's an anonymous one-time send and receive, and that's your lot.
While virtual you is sitting at their desk, scribbling away in the hope of salvaging the last tattered vestiges of human decency, you're subject to what the developers call "low-fi chill beats". This is a euphemism for slightly less awful supermarket music. I mean, it's not terrible, and it does kind of blend into the background while exuding "sit down, relax, and have a nice cup of tea" vibes, but it's still supermarket music. (Or cafe music, if you're trendy, sport a man-bun, and smell of patchouli.) Obviously, thrashing AC/DC's 'Back In Black' would probably harsh your mellow and wouldn't really be conducive to offering insightful and pertinent advice in a kindly and compassionate manner, but the aural equivalent of a pigeon having an orgasm doesn't really help either, if I'm completely honest. You might think it's fabulous, and I'm probably half-deaf from decades of heavy metal at volumes that could shatter concrete, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.
Is it fun? Is it entertaining? Do you feel a warm glow of satisfaction having spent three hours volunteering as an agony aunt to self-absorbed teenagers? Yes... and no. Kind Words is best experienced in short bursts. Being nice for prolonged periods is mentally and emotionally exhausting, and if you're anything like me, profoundly unnatural. Also, you will observe the same names posting the same First World problems over and over again. "My parents won't let me dye my hair electric blue and hammer lumps of metal into parts of my face!" "A girl at school thinks I'm a big dork and throws furniture at me!" "One of my nostrils is slightly larger than the other, and I look like I've escaped from the Jim Rose Circus!" It all gets a bit wearying after a while, which is not to say there aren't genuine people with very real problems here, but you're going to spend a lot of time shuffling the deck to sort the wheat from the chaff.
If late-stage capitalism, dishonest politicians, a planet rebelling against our continued abuse of it, and the myriad horrors of reality television have got you feeling somewhat dispirited, Kind Words may just be the emotional support app you never knew you needed. If it can warm the frosty black heart of this embittered cynic, there's probably something vaguely decent here, and best of all, it doesn't require hugging unsanitary weirdos, making asinine self-affirmation statements, or injecting psychedelic drugs into your eyeballs. Give it a whirl. What have you got to lose?