I’m not one to ask for help, even though I often need it. I know there are thousands like me out there, and I can’t help but feel Kind Words — a letter-sending game from developer PopCannibal — is a beautiful tool for many who feel the same way.

Your character sits in a small room, at a desk, ready to receive and send letters. The avatar isn’t customizable but is clearly inspired by the YouTube channel “ChilledCow” (the “lo-fi hip hop beats to chill to” streams). Your room is customizable, though, with stickers you can receive from those sending letters. It’s basic and chill — much like the music, which is very much part of the experience.

In Kind Words, you can send a letter out to the wider web and ask for advice on what’s worrying you. It could be as mundane as “What TV show should I be watching?” or something more serious, like asking for tips on dealing with depression.

I spent an hour answering people’s letters and it’s a rather euphoric feeling. They say it feels good to give; making people feel good will make you feel good, and it does. I don’t know for sure if anything I said helped anyone, but I honestly tried and felt good while doing it. The letters I answered ranged from dealing with annoying younger siblings to feeling like family members hate you for the way you laugh.

In one letter, someone expressed fear of coming out as gay to their religious family. I don’t know this person, and I can’t fully garner their position from such a short anonymous letter, but — as the title puts it — I can give kind words. I replied and told them they deserve to be happy and I would hope their family would love them no matter what. I ended the letter with a heart. I dunno if that’s the best advice I could have given, but over my hour playing Kind Words I realised that as much as I wished for more detail to better understand people’s situations, I could always send some form of encouragement and hope it would help. And Kind Words is about communal encouragement, not solving someone’s life problems over the internet in thirty seconds.

The game offers links to Checkpoint as well as Lifeline numbers in the menus and provides more helpful tools for those who may need them. Although I didn’t come across anyone expressing suicidal thoughts, it was on my mind as I clicked through the many letters, and I felt better knowing these resources were available within a couple of clicks.

Oddly, I didn’t come across any trolling either. You can report players, and a game like this — and its community — will only be as good as the reporting and action from the developer which, based on my short time, seems very good.

I sent out a letter expressing my frustrations about my day job and how it makes me feel (something I have expressed publicly before, and I’m happy to share here).

“My job makes me sad and anxious and I have an irrational fear I’ll be stuck working there forever…”

Before long I had received ten responses, all of which were very kind. Some were shorter than others, but no one was mean or rude. And yes, reading through them certainly was a nice feeling.

Here are a few of the letters I received:

“Welp. Opinion: if I were you I would quit the job and find another job that makes me happy.”

“Hey D,

I know that feeling well. Sometimes we’re stuck somewhere out of necessity, but for now, find things that can take your mind off work when you’re not there — a complete separation of work and home life. Maybe see if there are classes you can take in another subject that you may like to pursue. Remember, having a job and money is great, but our happiness and well-being is the most important thing we have. Take steps to make yourself happy.

– J”

“I have never been good with jobs. I’m always rabble-rousing and hassling management when people aren’t treated fair, or if things seem needlessly bad I rattle cages. As a result, I get fired a lot. BUT! I’d say one lesson I have is that you don’t have to stay there. Obviously there are some tricks to moving on, like living situation, pay, etc. But never let any job make you feel so down about yourself. You look out a window, look down the street, and you find someplace that won’t make you feel so bad. No money is worth that.”

A third feature in Kind Words is the ability to send some good karma out to the world. It’s like those inspirational quotes you see on Instagram pages — but sent by real people playing this game, not chasing followers. These messages fly by as paper planes around the small room your character sits in, and you can click on them as they float by to see what they say.

I opened one and it simply read:

“You are beautiful. Just the way you are. <3”

Kind Words is available now on Steam for $7.50