Working in tandem with the game indus♕try can be pretty awful sometimes. With the resurgence of Gamergaters, it feels like everything becomes a target for diatribes against wokeness and baseless ac🤡cusations that developers and journalists are ‘taking’ something away from gamers.
I still love my job, but all this bizarre online discourse has bled out into my real life – when I meet someone new and tell them what I do, I hold my breath, because I’ve forgotten that most people are actually very normal ab𒆙out video games. In fact, everybody I’ve ever told has reacted in excitement and immediately asked me what I think of a recent release, or what my favourite game is.
Please stop asking me what my favourite game is.
Most people aren’t de𝓡dicating their free time to harassing devs and journalists online. I couldn’t help but think about this as I read about , a sequel to a game where you listened to chill lo-fi music and wrote nice anonymous messages to real life people. The sequel, which released less than a week ago, expands on this a little, allowing you to send paper aeroplanes flying off to someone else’s game, chat briefly with other characters in the street, and even go to an open mic cafe where you can write and listen to poetry.
The Amazing Digita♋l Circus Nails The Worst Feeli𓃲ngs Of Body Dysmorphia
Zooble's struggle with self🌜 image is all too real.
Both ܫKind Words games are definitionally wholesome. They’re not necessarily games I would spend time in myself, but at the same time, I feel they have a place. They’re bids for human connection – as you tool around, you might receive anguished messages about breakups, family issues, feeling alone, even thoughts of violence or self-harm. When you engage with these games, it’s because you want to be shown kindness, or you want to show kindness. I can imagine that if these games had existed when I was a vulnerable, sad teenager, I might have turned to them with my own pl𓄧eas to be heard.
World Me𒈔nta𓆉l Health Day was just a couple of days ago, so this release feels particularly well-timed.
Gaming isn’t generally a space I turn to for positive interactions with other people. There are some exceptions – I quite enjoyed playing because most people were really polite and helpful – but the combination of anonymity with competitiveness can turn even the nicest of gamer♛s into rude, angry people. I’ve seen many friends, both men and women, play games like DOTA 2 and League of Legends and become unrecognisable, hurling insults at their own teammates because of an honest mistake.
But why shouldn’t games be a virtual place where we show real kindness to each other? It feels almost naive to say so, considering the state of things and especially the culture of the internet at large, but these glancing, brief connections have value. A tender, genuine moment of understanding between two strangers can hold a lot of wei𝄹ght, even if it amounts to nothing more than acknowledgement that one person is struggling. Sometimes, it’s🌜 enough to just be seen.
Games like Kind Words 2 are reminders that, yes, games aren’t always solitary 🔯experiences, or hostile ones. They can be means with which we reach out to the world. They can be ways in which we get things off our chest. We don’t have to distance ourselves from each other because of a hobby. We can be kind to ꦍeach other.
Growing Up Is Learning To Love The Parts Of Games Tha🅘t Stress You ♚Out
Dungeons, which haunted me in Ocarina of Time, are m𓄧y favorite part of Echoes of Wisdom.
