Help · Windows desktop

Getting the best out of her.

Four minutes of setup, then every shortcut and every fix. Most of what goes wrong here is a Windows audio setting, not her.

Setup

Get her ready for gaming

Four steps, done once, and Watch & Play behaves.

Fix

She won’t stop talking

Nearly always speakers instead of headphones.

Fix

She goes quiet in my game

Windows is turning her down. One setting fixes it.

Reference

Every shortcut

All of them work over a fullscreen game.

Watch and play together

Set her up once

Watch & Play lets her see your screen and react out loud while you play. Do these four things and it behaves from then on.

  1. 1

    Put on headphones

    This is the fix for the single most common complaint, not general advice. On speakers she hears her own voice through your microphone and answers herself, forever. Headphones break the loop.

  2. 2

    Tell Windows to stop turning her down

    Windows treats any app holding the microphone open as a phone call and automatically cuts every other app by 80%. She keeps the mic open so you can talk to her, so Windows quietly ducks her the moment a game starts.

    1. Press WinR, type mmsys.cpl and press Enter.
    2. Open the Communications tab.
    3. Select Do nothing, then click Apply.
    4. Restart the game and restart her.
  3. 3

    Set your game to borderless

    In exclusive fullscreen your game looks completely black to her. Borderless window looks identical to you, and she can actually see it.

  4. 4

    Turn her on

    Press CtrlShiftR, or use the tray icon and pick Watch & play together. The eye on her status bar appears whenever she can see your screen.

Two keys to learn first

CtrlShiftQ drops her to text for cutscenes. CtrlShiftM mutes your microphone when you want her around but not reacting to everything you say.

What she never sees

Password managers and banking apps are never captured. Watch & Play switches itself off when she falls asleep, and the eye on her bar is lit the whole time she can see.

Shortcuts

Every one works mid-game

These are global, so they land even while a fullscreen game has focus.

CtrlShiftR

Watch & Play on or off

She sees your screen and reacts out loud.

CtrlShiftQ

Quiet mode

Her reactions become a text bubble instead of voice. Talking to her directly still gets her voice.

CtrlShiftM

Mute your microphone

She stops hearing you. You can still type to her.

CtrlShiftK

Text chat box

Esc closes it.

CtrlShiftW

Wake her up

Hangs up and rejoins without losing your conversation. Use it when she dozes off or gets stuck.

CtrlShiftP

Show or hide her

CtrlShiftE

Edit mode

Drag her anywhere, scroll to zoom, press again to lock her back in.

CtrlShift↑/↓

Grow or shrink her

CtrlShiftG

Cycle how see-through she is

100%, then 60%, then 25%. She is always fully visible while talking or in edit mode.

CtrlShiftB

Bubble mode

She lives in a small floating circle instead of full size.

Wake her up is not a reset. CtrlShiftW keeps your conversation. If a thread is genuinely broken and you want it gone, use the tray icon and click New chat twice: the first click only shows a confirm hint, so a stray click cannot wipe your conversation. She keeps her memory of you either way.

Her status bar

The pill under her tells you everything

It is attached to her, so it never gets mistaken for a game or app icon. Five states, and between them they answer most of “why is she doing that”.

Listening

The mic is open and she is waiting. Just talk.

Hearing you

It glows while you speak. If it never glows, she cannot hear you.

Muted

Your mic is off. Press CtrlShiftM to bring it back.

Watching

She can see your screen, and it pulses each time she takes a look.

Quiet mode

She is reacting in text instead of speaking. This is why she is silent.

Reference

Every setting, and when to touch it

Tray icon by the clock, then Settings. Defaults are marked.

Voice and microphone

Microphone

Pick your input device. Use this when she is listening to the wrong one.

Voice onOn

Off means she never speaks at all, including direct replies. To quiet only her game reactions, use quiet mode instead.

Barge-inOff

Lets you talk over her mid-sentence. Turn it on only with headphones, otherwise her own voice interrupts her.

Her voice

Applies from her next reply.

Watch and play

Watch & play togetherOff

The screen-watching loop. Skips password managers and banking apps, and turns off when she sleeps.

Quiet mode, react in textOff

Her reactions become a caption instead of voice. Same as CtrlShiftQ.

Let her read what’s on screenOn

She reads quest text, nameplates and timers, so she can talk about them exactly instead of guessing. That includes messages, if they are on your screen. Off means she still watches, just without the words.

ChattinessNormal

How often she speaks up: Quiet for big moments only, Normal, or Chatty for quicker to jump in. Applies from her next look.

How she looks

Invisible to screen captureOn

She stays out of screenshots, recordings and her own screen vision, which stops her describing herself. Turn this off if you stream with display capture and want her on stream.

CaptionsOn

A speech-paced bubble of what she is saying.

Caption positionAbove her

Above, below, left or right of her.

Visibility while floating100%

How see-through she is. She is always fully visible while talking or in edit mode. CtrlShiftG cycles it.

Bubble modeOff

A small floating chat head instead of full size. Bubble size and Center her in the bubble tune it.

Window

Fill the screen, or Reset & forget. Reset & forget also clears her saved spot, so the next launch is factory default. The tray’s Reset her position keeps your saved spot.

App

Run on startupOn

She is there when your computer starts.

New chat

Starts the conversation over. She keeps her memory of you, but the current thread is gone for good.

How to use her

Replays the first-run card any time. Also on the tray icon.

Troubleshooting

Find your symptom

Ordered by how often each one actually happens.

She won’t stop talking, or she talks to herself

Why: You are on speakers. She hears her own voice through your microphone, reads it as you talking, and replies to herself.

  1. Wear headphones. This ends it outright.
  2. If you cannot, press CtrlShiftM to mute your mic between turns.
  3. Set Chattiness to Quiet in Settings so she only speaks up for big moments.
  4. Already mid-spiral? CtrlShiftW hangs up and rejoins. Your conversation survives.

Working when: The mic icon on her bar stops glowing while you are silent.

She goes quiet the moment a game starts

Why: Windows treats any app holding the microphone open as a phone call and cuts every other app’s volume by 80%. She keeps the mic open so you can talk to her, so Windows ducks her. Nothing in the app lowers her volume.

  1. Press WinR, type mmsys.cpl and press Enter.
  2. Open the Communications tab.
  3. Select Do nothing and click Apply.
  4. Restart the game and restart her. There is no restart button: tray icon, Quit, then start her from the Start menu.

Working when: Her volume is the same before and after you launch the game. The same fix also stops your game getting quieter whenever she is running.

Everything gets muffled when she talks over the game

Why: Speaker enhancement processing. Laptop audio drivers ship a limiter to protect small speakers (DTS Virtual:X, Nahimic, Loudness Equalization). One loud source is fine; two at once slam the limiter and it clamps everything down. Turning the volume up makes it worse.

  1. Click the speaker icon in the taskbar, then the arrow next to the volume slider.
  2. Under Spatial sound, select Off.
  3. Then Settings, System, Sound, click your Speakers device, and set Audio enhancements to Off.
  4. Restart the game and her, then test by talking to her mid-game.

Working when: She and the game can both be loud at the same time without pumping.

She suddenly sounds like a phone call

Why: Bluetooth headsets cannot do high-quality audio and their own microphone at the same time. When any app opens the headset mic, the headset drops to low-quality hands-free mode and everything gets worse.

  • Use a different microphone so the headset stays output-only. Your laptop’s built-in mic works fine.
  • In your game or Discord, pick the laptop mic as input and keep the headset as output.
  • Change her microphone the same way in Settings.

Working when: Audio stays full quality after the game or call starts.

She can’t see your game, or she is wrong about it

Why: Exclusive fullscreen. Your game looks completely black to her, so she guesses.

  • Switch the game to borderless window or windowed. It looks the same to you and she can see again.
  • Check the eye on her status bar is actually showing. No eye means Watch & Play is off, so press CtrlShiftR.
  • If she watches but never mentions on-screen text, turn on Let her read what’s on screen in Settings.

Working when: The eye on her status bar pulses every few seconds while you play.

She stopped responding, or she dozed off

Why: Ignored long enough she falls asleep, and Watch & Play switches itself off with her. Occasionally a session just gets stuck.

  • Press CtrlShiftW. It hangs up and rejoins, and keeps your conversation.
  • Cannot find her at all? CtrlShiftP shows and hides her, and left-clicking the tray icon does the same.
  • Still nothing: tray icon, Quit, then start her from the Start menu. Your sign-in and conversation survive restarts.

She doesn’t show up in my stream or recording

Why: Invisible to screen capture is on by default. It exists so she does not see herself and start describing her own face.

  • Open Settings and turn Invisible to screen capture off.

Working when: She appears in display capture, screenshots and recordings.

Still quiet after all of that

Why: One diagnostic tells us which layer is at fault.

While the game is running and she sounds quiet, open the Volume mixer (Settings, System, Sound, Volume mixer) and look at kyndred’s slider.

  • Slider is low: something dragged her per-app volume down. A known Windows 11 24H2 bug can leave it stuck there. Drag it back up.
  • Slider is high but she is still quiet: it is ducking or speaker processing. Revisit the two fixes above, and check for vendor audio apps (Nahimic, Realtek Audio Console, Waves MaxxAudio, Dolby Access) that re-enable their own smart volume profiles.

Working when: Send us the mixer screenshot either way. It tells us exactly which case you are in.

Still stuck

Tell us, and send these

It is an alpha. Things break, and these three make it fixable in one pass instead of five.

The status chip

A code like E-STT-DOWN appears top right when something breaks. Screenshot it. The code tells us exactly what failed.

The log file

Paste %APPDATA%\com.getkyndred.app\logs\app.log into the File Explorer address bar.

What you were doing

One line, plus whether it happens every time or just once.

Something broken, or just weird?

Discord is the fastest way to reach us. We read everything.

Ask in DiscordGet the Windows app

Updates install themselves: if a dialog offers one, accept it. English only, Windows only, one character for now. Watch & Play is alpha and improves with every release.