If you already know some typing games, you probably have an opinion, good or bad. If you don’t know much about them, no worries, that\u2019s what I expected. The genre is very niche, and for good reason: how odd to want to control a game with typing! It is indeed so odd that it brings unusual and pretty exciting design challenges. But the genre is so niche that there are few, if any, design resources available. That\u2019s where I come in! I\u2019ll try to give a good overview of typing games based on my personal experience as a game designer on Epistory and Nanotale, various typing games I\u2019ve played, and interviews I\u2019ve had with other typing game developers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I plan to cover a bit of the history and background around popular typing games, then delve into the design considerations that typing poses and the solutions we can find. Finally we\u2019ll look at where the genre is headed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Spoiler alert\u2014you\u2019ll leave this reading with one of two takeaways: either you\u2019ll be inspired by the novel constraint that a typing game can be and start thinking of new things to do with it. Or you will focus on the problems and reject the idea of ever approaching a typing game\u2014which is fine! I still think it can be interesting to analyze the genre even if you don\u2019t plan to make one, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be honest, I\u2019ve gone back and forth between these two positions over the years, and when I started working on this article, I was mostly on the \u201cI’m done with this\u201d side. That was part of the motivation behind this project: to put everything I\u2019ve learned about typing games into writing so I could pass it on and put it all behind me. But talking with other designers and thinking about typing game design with a more open mind than when I was working on an actual project, with its own constraints, made me more optimistic about the future potential of the genre. But let\u2019s not get ahead of ourselves and start at the beginning. Perhaps you have never even heard of a typing game before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Continue -><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n\n\n\n First of all, we need to agree on a definition of the genre we are trying to analyze here. To play a typing game, you have to use your keyboard. But not all games played with a keyboard are typing games. Let’s review a few games that play with words or letters in original ways and explain why I wouldn’t call them typing games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typoman<\/a> (2015)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typoman is famous for integrating physical words into its levels that you can play with to solve word puzzles. For example, a moving platform is made out of the word PLATFORM. Rolling an “O” next to an “N” shaped device turns the platform ON. Some puzzles have a special interface where you are prompted to solve anagrams. This is a clever way to play with words, which is used to interact with the game world (and it can be a nice inspiration for typing games). But the input method is not typing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cook, Serve, Delicious! (2012<\/a>, 2017<\/a>, 2020<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cook, Serve, Delicious! series simulates the rush of a restaurant kitchen by giving players a multitude of small actions to prepare meals in a limited amount of time. Each action is associated with a different key. For example, to make lasagna, you must layer Pasta, Sauce, Meat and Cheese by hitting (typing?) “P S M C P S M C P S M C”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ettome (designer and developer of Typing Hearts) doesn’t mind calling it a typing game: \u201cYou have to type sequences of letters that don\u2019t form a word. It\u2019s a different way of representing typing.\u201c Note that Cook, Serve, Delicious! is inspired by the playstation game Ore no Ryouri<\/a> and can also be played with a gamepad. For Malte Hoffmann (game designer on Touch Type Tale<\/a> at Pumpernickel Studio), it’s adjacent to typing games because you use all the keys of your keyboard and because it can be played 100% with a keyboard. But it\u2019s not that different from playing a strategy game where you have a lot of hotkeys. \u201cIt\u2019s like using the keyboard as a controller with lots of buttons,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me to call it a typing game, you have to type words.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keyboard Sports – Saving QWERTY<\/a> (planned for 2022)<\/p>\n\n\n\n WAVER: A Typing Adventure<\/a> is a Ludum Dare<\/a> game in which you have to press the right key at the right time for characters to stand up in sync with a stadium wave. The position of the characters in the stadium matches the position of the keys on the keyboard, which gives a bit more meaning to the keyboard input. Keyboard Sports – Saving QWERTY goes further with different mini games where the keyboard layout is displayed on the ground and used to move a character, control a vehicle, aim in a direction\u2026 Those are many ways to play using the keyboard as a controller, but are you really typing? Being controlled only by a keyboard is not a sufficient condition to define a typing game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Event[0]<\/a> (2016)<\/p>\n\n\n\n What about a hacking simulator like Hacknet<\/a> (2015), where you have to type command lines to interact with a computer? Typing is the most logical input, the best for context and immersion. The same is true of Event[0], in which communication with Kaizen, the computer AI, is done by typing to simply talk to it. The actual game\u2019s AI looks for keywords in the sentence entered and compares them to a database of tag patterns to give a consistent answer. Writing a full, grammatically correct sentence is not necessary, but it\u2019s the most natural way for the player to type and it helps make the discussion feel real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, Hacknet is a hacking simulation game with puzzle elements. Event[0] is an adventure game with a focus on story, like other walking simulators. Even though most of the games I just mentioned have the \u201ctyping\u201d tag on Steam, having to type text in the game doesn\u2019t make typing the primary genre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n What, then, makes me call The Typing of the Dead, Epistory<\/a> (2016) and many others \u201ctyping games\u201d? Simply the fact that typing words is the main mechanic. It\u2019s a mechanic that has associated skills that players can be challenged on, that allows for variations and a degree of versatility, and that can be combined with other mechanics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a game mechanic, typing can challenge speed, accuracy, consistency and sometimes reading, memorization or spelling. This is a skill you already have before you play your first typing game, but that improves as you play. This doesn\u2019t mean that the game has to be difficult or only accessible to fast typists, but simply that the quality of the typing should influence the outcome of the game. A typing game has typing words as its main mechanic.<\/strong> Words for Evil<\/a> (2014)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s end with an example that may be harder to classify. In Words for Evil, making words in a matching game triggers attacks in RPG-style battles that take place at the top of the screen. Typing is used to enter text; the real challenge is finding long words to make from the grid and integrating colored letters into them. But when enemies are fighting back, it adds time pressure that makes typing fast somewhat important. BloodType<\/a> (2021) gives you scrambled letters from which to make words to shoot at zombies. The time pressure is there, but the challenge is mostly on fast thinking and having enough vocabulary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless of how you want to categorize these games, here we will focus on typing games in which the primary challenge is typing words, as this is what brings new opportunities and challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continue -><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n We just defined typing games as having typing words (or sentences) input as the core of the game. We don\u2019t use the keyboard as an original controller like Keyboard Sports does, nor do we use natural language processing to respond to whatever the players type. Typing controls are not a revolutionary way to control something you couldn\u2019t control before, like the N64 controller\u2019s thumbstick which allowed for 360-degree movement controls and made 3D platforming more playable. Typing is uncommon in games, but very common for anyone who has ever used a computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If typing one word corresponds to one action, then it’s a very basic type of command. When asked if there were things done with typing that wouldn\u2019t work with conventional controls, Malte Hoffmann told me \u201cYou can imagine changing every word to a clickable button and it would be the same. You can definitely do it without typing. Maybe it would feel like a mobile game because there are so many buttons which you have to click with your mouse, but it\u2019s nothing that can\u2019t be done without typing.\u201d One of the advantages of typing is that it allows you to perform many actions simultaneously. The limit is the number of words you can display on screen or that players can remember, but never the number of words in a language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n Malte Hoffmann again: \u201cTo me, typing feels like a very satisfying thing once you get a little good at it.\u201d If you can touch type, you have all the game\u2019s controls at your fingertips, without having to move your hands to reach a hotkey or to use the mouse. \u201cHaving everything on the keyboard is its own special kind of feeling\u201d. That\u2019s why most of the menus in Epistory and Nanotale can also be navigated with typing. Asking players to reach for their mouse to click to choose an upgrade would break that flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Note that this only works with words known to the players and sentences that make sense. Random strings of letters or made-up words are harder to read and remember because they cannot be merged into one memory chunk. The same goes if the player has to type quickly. This is a type of challenge unique to typing games, but one that depends heavily on the players\u2019 familiarity with what they have to type. We\u2019ll come back to this when we talk about balancing difficulty and adding variety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A typing game has typing words as an input. * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n On that topic, Diego Sacchetti (game designer on Textorcist at MorbidWare) compared performing a sequence to throw a fireball: \u201d\u2193 ↘ \u2192 A B B A\u201d to writing a sentence like \u201cTAKE THIS!\u201d. \u201cTyping is like performing combos with meaning within the control scheme itself and I find that fascinating.\u201d Both inputs are similar, but the former takes its meaning from the movements you have to make with your thumbs, while the latter has meaning in the words you type. Typing words conveys both the meaning of typing (or writing or talking) and the actual meaning of the words typed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Diego Sacchetti: \u201cAlthough The Typing of the Dead<\/a> is to me one of the best typing games ever made, I\u2019ve always thought using random words in typing games is certainly a good fit, but at the same time a big loss on meaning. Players read and type tons of words during the game but all those words never hold any deeper meaning \/ relationship. I wanted to avoid that by actually putting meaningful sentences in Textorcist that fit the fight, have increasing length and difficulty, are coherent with the fight and the task to perform and the story.\u201d Epistory has words drawn from different dictionaries (lists of words with a common theme) depending on the action you perform or the object you interact with. You break a rock by typing \u201cGRANITE\u201d and make flowers grow by typing \u201cORCHID\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enemies, on the other hand, had no thematic words. Quantity and variety were favored over meaning, which led to some fun random combinations. But even random words have meaning, and you can\u2019t expect players to ignore it. I remember some Epistory streamers making up stories from the words they typed while playing. One of the many random words we had was \u201cBARBECUE\u201d. It stuck out as the example of out-of-context words that we always used during the development of Nanotale. We didn\u2019t want players to type \u201cBARBECUE\u201d to analyze a fantasy creature or defeat the final boss. So for Nanotale<\/a> (2021), we use lexical fields for each type of enemy. The fastest enemy has words like \u201cRUSH\u201d, \u201cIMPATIENT\u201d and \u201cHECTIC\u201d, while the enemy who protects itself in a shell has words such as \u201cCOWARD\u201d, \u201cDISGUISE\u201d and \u201cCOY\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typing Hearts<\/a> (TBA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typing hearts is a dating sim in which you type words to simulate a discussion during a date, so players use their imagination to figure out what\u2019s behind the words. \u201cI find it very interesting to play with the double meaning of words,\u201d Ettome said in describing the feature. The words you get to type change as the relationship progresses. \u201cFor example, if you chose to talk about food or cookies in the dialog branches, those words will come back in the typing game in a subtle way. As a player, you will notice \u201cthat\u2019s funny, she\u2019s talking about that thing we talked about before\u201d. Later on, I play with that in weird ways, like forcing the player to type the same word multiple times.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Backspace Bouken you have to type entire sentences to defeat enemies, and the whole story is conveyed through this typable text. For Benjamin Bushe and Jake White (designers of Backspace Bouken at RNG Party), typing has the advantage that \u201cyou\u2019re forced to read the story.\u201d Each boss has a different writing style, which gives them unique personalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can even leverage the immediate understanding of the words you read to subconsciously influence the players. Outshine<\/a> (2022) has different themed word pools to establish a particular mood for each world. Each level of Epistory has a unique list of words that fit the backstory\u2014a backstory that is never explicitly revealed to players, but that most have pieced together. 20% of enemy words are drawn from this list, so at least a part of what you type fits the context and mood of the level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The purpose of language is to convey meaning. * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wrote earlier that the typing mechanic had the meaning of the word typed and<\/em> the meaning of the action of typing. Allow me a little digression: in board game design, there are multiple ways to generate a random outcome. You can roll dice, draw cards, take tokens from a bag, use a mobile companion app\u2026 Let\u2019s say we balance them so that they have similar probabilities. We can choose the one whose physical manipulation best fits the fantasy of the game. Now, if we are required to have a dice mechanic, we ask ourselves what actions are a good fit for the dice roll? Back to typing, we can ask ourselves: what actions are best suited for a typing mechanic?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spell casting in Nanotale<\/a> (2021)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most straightforward answer is a typing game in which your character is actually typing at a computer (like Hacknet). But there are other ways to contextualize the typing, and that\u2019s what I was looking for at the beginning of Nanotale\u2019s development. In the final game, the main character casts magic spells when the player types in a combination of keywords, such as RAY, LARGE and FIRE for a large fire beam that burns away enemies and obstacles, as if speaking an incantation. In dialogues, typable keywords are highlighted in the NPC\u2019s text to select a branch of dialogue, as if you were asking questions about it. Similarly, Typing Hearts\u2019 typing is a representation of a discussion during a date, even if the full discussion is left to the player\u2019s imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One more thing about Nanotale: a large part of the game is gathering knowledge about the world by analyzing plants, creatures and talking to NPCs. After doing so, the main character takes notes about what she learned in her notebook, and the player has to type a few words from the text (selected to be the most representative). In early versions, the text would write itself and stop at the keywords until the player had typed them, making it feel like you were actually typing, without having to type entire paragraphs. This was changed to typing all the keywords at once when we added a voice over to allow players to continue playing while listening to the lore. But typing still has the meaning of taking notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Note that even though the typing is a representation of saying or writing full sentences, its execution is always simplified to typing only keywords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia<\/a> (2019)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Textorcist, on the contrary, asks players to type whole sentences to exorcise demons. I\u2019ll let Diego Sacchetti explain: \u201cIn Textorcist, you play as a private exorcist and I wanted to create that feeling from the movie where the task to perform is easy (reading the verses, typing the spell) but made nearly impossible from the large amount of noise generated (demonic powers, bullets). The typing in our case is not only a game mechanic, instead it fits the story and the character you play, it\u2019s spread across the entire game, not only the fights.\u201d The difficulty for the player to move their hand from the keyboard to the arrow keys fast enough to dodge bullets is a representation of the main character trying to read the bible while avoiding the demon\u2019s attacks. \u201cOur game is meant to be played with the arrow keys because switching from one side to another of the keyboard is part of the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Actions controlled through typing have<\/strong> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continue -><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Since we\u2019re talking about games that focus solely on typing, you might be thinking of an educational game you had to play at school to learn how to type. Mavis Beacon teaches typing<\/a>, to name the most popular one, is a training software that also contains mini games. It has seen many iterations, from its original MS-DOS version (1987) to the current Steam version<\/a> (2020), and many North Americans have memories of learning typing at school using it. While presenting Epistory and Nanotale at game conventions, we noticed cultural differences in the perception of typing games. Europeans tend to say \u201cah, it\u2019s a typing game\u201d with disappointment or disdain, while Americans and Japanese are more enthusiastic and curious about how it works. In Japan, home of the arcade machine The Typing of the Dead (1999), players don\u2019t seem to have bad memories of edutainment typing. In the United States, a typing game is regarded as educational (the go-to reference being Mavis Beacon), but not necessarily \u201cnot fun\u201d. Once again, this is only based on our interactions with players at conventions, so take it with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be fair, it\u2019s true that almost all the old typing games are educational games. For Diego Sacchetti, \u201ctyping games are always labeled as educational, moreover typing games are always measured against their educational value in order to tell if the game is good or not.\u201d Are you familiar with Learn with Pok\u00e9mon: Typing Adventure<\/a> (2011), which was sold with a bluetooth keyboard for Nintendo DS? It was marketed as \u201ca typing action game for all skill levels to increase your speed and accuracy\u201d. It\u2019s hard to picture a fun game when you hear \u201ctyping\u201d, which is perceived more like a constraint than an opportunity for new experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n But modern typing game developers try to stay away from the \u201ceducational\u201d branding because of its stigma. We want players to be open-minded to the new experience we try to create, and \u201cteaching\u201d is not the right framing at all. It may even turn players away because most of them believe that they are not good at typing and assume that a typing game is not for them. Diego Sacchetti thinks that \u201cpeople should stop framing typing as an educational-only mechanic. Typing is a beautiful way to play with a controller full of buttons (your keyboard), and the relationships among the buttons also provides meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other reason is to not give the wrong idea: our typing games don\u2019t teach typing like Mavis Beacon. For Sophie Schiaratura (public relations and marketing on Epistory and Nanotale at Fishing Cactus), if you don\u2019t already know how to type, you\u2019re lost and not having fun. \u201cSome players complain about it, saying that it\u2019s a bad educational game, even though that\u2019s not our goal and we\u2019ve never communicated this. When parents want to know if their kids can learn typing with our game, we tell them that you can improve by playing but in no way learn.\u201d Malte Hoffmann says the same thing: \u201cYou can improve your typing skills by playing the game, but it won’t teach you where to put your fingers\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where the relationship with the educational aspect is a bit ambiguous. When defining the typing genre, I said that challenging typing meant players would improve that skill by playing. And all the typing game developers I\u2019ve talked to said they improved their typing speed. For Hugo Bourbon (game designer on Outshine at Fishing Cactus), if educational <\/em>means learning skills or knowledge, then \u201ca game that pushes the player to improve their typing accuracy and speed is educational.\u201d But he still doesn’t like to use the word educational <\/em>whose \u201cmeaning is related to children\u2019s development and can be misinterpreted by buyers.\u201d Diego Sacchetti concludes: \u201cIn the end, Textorcist will definitely make players better at something. Many players report that by the end of the game they can blindtype. This cannot be avoided and also makes me happy. I think the emphasis on the educational part only emerges because typing is a skill needed everyday outside of the magic circle of a game. If emails had to be written like playing doom, FPS would probably be framed as an educational mechanic too.\u201d So, yes, you may improve a useful skill, but that\u2019s true for other genres as well and it does not justify the educational label, nor the negative connotation that comes with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Players tend to think of typing games as edutainment.<\/strong> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continue -><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Besides Mavis Beacon, the most common (and only) reference players had when we first showed Epistory was The Typing of the Dead franchise. When Ettome (designer and developer of Typing Hearts) says he\u2019s making a typing game, \u201cfor most gamers, [Typing of the Dead] still is the reference. I believe it\u2019s the one that made the biggest impact on people\u2019s minds.\u201d Starting as a typing adaptation of The House of the Dead, a classic rail shooter, it is to the best of my knowledge the first typing game to be a \u201creal game\u201d. The first version in Japan was an arcade cabinet where the light guns were replaced by keyboards, but its popularity in the US comes from its console adaptations and PC sequels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Typing of the Dead (2000 for the original<\/a>, 2013 for Overkill<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you put aside the 3D zombies, the game plays in the same way as many other small typing games you can find on Steam or on browser games portals. The game gives you words that you have to type within a limited time. Often the words are linked to dangerous things moving towards you and you are expected to type them fast enough, starting from the closest one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fast Typing Master<\/a> (2020) is the clearest example of this gameplay, which I call here the \u201cclassic formula\u201d. This is the most basic way to challenge typing skills, and the most intuitive because, outside of video games, typing is measured in words per minute (or WPM) which is a measure of typing speed. Fun fact: by definition, a \u201cword\u201d in WPM is equal to five keystrokes, so WPM is actually keystrokes per minute divided by five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Type Racer<\/a> (2008)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Type Racer also simply asks players to type fast but adds a multiplayer component. It’s currently the most popular online multiplayer typing game, and it allows a large community (30,000 members on its official Discord server) to compete for free in typing speed competitions. It may not look like a real game but the community of players who want to show off their typing speed is not insignificant for a typing game. Typefighters<\/a> (2016) features simple typing minigames that are also all multiplayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typing of the Undead<\/a> (2019)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just typing words one after another quickly becomes boring (at least if you\u2019re not a competitive player). However, with the right context and enough feedback, you can get into the flow much like you would with a rhythm game. Good contextualisation of the typing and variations in what you need to type are also very important. For example, Typing of the Undead sometimes uses single letters or long sentences. But to deepen the experience and be \u201cmore like a real game,\u201d we need to give players more agency and meaningful choices to make. We\u2019ll expand on all of this in the continuation of this article, starting by supplementing the typing with mechanics from other genres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continue -><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the typing is too shallow on its own, it can simply be mixed with another genre: Outshine\u2019s gameplay is close to the classic formula, but it has the look and feel of a typing shoot them up. God of Word<\/a> alternates \u201ctype fast\u201d gameplay phases with scrambled word puzzles and can be added to the list of puzzle typing games. Type to continue<\/a> is a typing horror game where you have to type fast to avoid a jump-scary monster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Touch Type Tale – Strategic Typing<\/a> (planned for 2022)<\/p>\n\n\n\n This hybridization is often a way to add meat to the game by bringing in established mechanics from a more mature genre. \u201cWhen you search for \u201ctyping\u201d on Steam there aren\u2019t many games, and it\u2019s especially hard to find quality: games that go further than just type-attack\u201d said Ettome. When he started thinking about making a typing game, he combined it with an old idea of doing a dating sim to give it more depth. Today, Typing Hearts<\/a> can be described as HuniePop with the match-3 replaced by typing. Touch Type Tale<\/a> has a similar story: Malte already liked strategy games and wondered how typing could be put into a strategy game. The physical challenge of typing is balanced by the mental challenges of puzzle solving or strategic planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Backspace Bouken<\/a> (2019)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Backspace Bouken puts typing in a dungeon crawler because Ben and Jake were playing dungeon crawlers at the time. \u201cIt adds a dungeon exploration aspect. The fact that spaces are a resource pushes players to explore the entire dungeon.\u201d (We\u2019ll come back to the space characters mechanic later.) Similarly, in the first draft of Epistory<\/a>\u2019s concept, the adventure part of it was intended to push players to go further in the game and give a sense of progression, in case typing was repetitive. Today both Epistory and Nanotale are described as typing adventure RPGs. In fact, during events we pitched Epistory as \u201cif Typing of the Dead and Zelda had a baby\u201d. While it\u2019s not really a Zelda-like, it was very helpful for people to understand what was beyond the typing mechanic. We\u2019re all looking for experiences with the right balance of familiarity and novelty. Here, the other genre is the base that is familiar to players and the typing is the twist that brings novelty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The typing mechanic is original and gets players\u2019 attention,<\/strong> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continue -><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n The first question we asked ourselves when thinking about the typing game that eventually became Epistory, was how to give players meaningful choices\u2014something that was lacking in the typing games of the time because they followed what I referred to above as the \u201cclassic formula\u201d. Inspired by the common wisdom that you shouldn\u2019t describe your game in terms of what players have <\/em>to do, but rather what they can <\/em>do, we looked for reasons to want to type one word rather than another. That led to the battle gameplay, where you cannot move and have to kill all the enemies before they reach your avatar in the center of the arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Epistory<\/a> (2016)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The base gameplay is classic typing design, but the different enemy archetypes have different speeds and life points (how many words you have to type). This gives the choice of which one to attack first to stay safe, which challenges your judgment of speed \/ distance and your attention. When an enemy is hit, there is a knockback that reduces the urgency to attack that enemy and prompts the player to choose another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second layer of depth comes with the \u201cmagics\u201d that you can select by typing their name. In exchange for taking a bit more time to type the magic\u2019s name, you get its benefit: ICE stops the enemy for a while, which is good against fast enemies or ones with very long words. FIRE burns the next word to type so you don\u2019t have to type it, which is best against enemies with long or complex words. (It takes a few seconds, so you still have the choice between typing it faster yourself or switching your attention to another enemy.) ZAP and WIND have similar uses than fire and ice but with an area of effect, so the choice of which magic to use also depends on how enemies are grouped. I have heard debates among players about which magic was the best, so I’m sure there is part of personal preference as well in the choice of magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Ettome started experimenting with typing mechanics, he had at one point a prototype with words falling down the screen a la Guitar Hero and thought there was something missing: \u201cHow can I add another dimension to simply typing words as they come and turning your brain off?\u201d His solution in Typing Hearts is an ever-filling grid of words so you don\u2019t have to (and can\u2019t) type all the words. The goal is to reach a given score in a limited amount of time, knowing that the longer words give more points and that there is a multiplier that increases with accuracy (decreases if you mistype). A good strategy is to type small words to increase the multiplier, then type the long words to make more points. On top of that, words are grouped in conversation topics, indicated by the color of the word, which give different amounts of points. The choice of which word to type is based on its color, length and complexity, relative to the other words available and the current multiplier level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Nanotale, which we developed as a spiritual successor of Epistory, we kept the battle phases but added the ability to move. The problem of having to focus on both where to move and what to type is solved in part by having the enemies run in slow motion while your avatar moves. Being able to choose where to position yourself adds spatial agency to the battles. It\u2019s a choice based on the location of enemies (and enemy spawners) and the risk you\u2019re willing to take. The addition of teleporters later in the game gives even more movement options (you type their word and get teleported on them).<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s another aspect of the game where we gave more spatial agency compared to Epistory, and that is the way you cast spells on enemies. There are different kinds of spells (I\u2019ll give examples later) but what matters here is that they come in different shapes. The basic shapes are a spherical area of effect centered on the target and a ray going from the avatar in the direction of the target. Thus, both the position of the avatar and of the chosen target matter in the casting of the spell. And by \u201ctarget\u201d I mean enemies but also other \u201cinteractable\u201d objects with a typable word on top of them. That also works outside of battles, when you need to find the right spell to use on the right target to solve a puzzle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All the words on screen are opportunities to interact with the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m talking about spatial agency, a term I borrow from Matthias Worch\u2019s three types of agency. If you\u2019re not familiar with the concept, let me summarize it for you. Players want to feel a sense of agency, that is, feel like they act on their own and see the consequences of their actions on the world. Giving a large possibility space (more things to do and different ways to play) increases agency. Matthias Worch then distinguishes between three types: spatial agency is about where <\/em>you play, how your position and movement change the way you play. The scheduling agency is with whom <\/em>or what<\/em> you play, how the tools, guns, crew members or upgrades you chose over others limit your possibilities of action. For example, the upgrades in Nanotale add a bit of scheduling agency because the abilities available depend on the upgrades you choose to unlock. But that mechanic is not related to typing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The systemic agency is the only one that is fundamental\u2014spatial and scheduling are combined with it to expand the possibility space. The systemic agency is about how <\/em>you play and comes from the connections between game systems. Let\u2019s say you can use weapon A against enemy X in the left room of the level, or weapon B against enemy Y in the right room, or any other possible combination. As long as each feature really feels different, combining them multiplies the player\u2019s options to approach a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So can we make the typing more systemic? This is what we tried to do in Nanotale. In Epistory, you can choose between 4 magics and use them against any enemy. In Nanotale, you can do the same but with 8 effects (PUSH, FIRE, ICE, ZAP\u2026) that you can cast as a default area of effect or combine with one of 3 shapes (RAY) and\/or one of 3 modifiers (LONG). So a FIRE RAY that stays active for a LONG time is one of 8 x 4 x 4 = 128 possibilities. Of course, most of these are variations of each other and some only have a very specific purpose and are rarely used\u2014like LIFE SELF which can be used to heal yourself. But our QA tester has found several emergent ways to use the spells that were not explicitly designed, so I believe there is something meaningful there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are still other ways to combine words left to explore. Here are potential implementations of a two-step choice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cclassic\u201d way to implement typing mechanics<\/strong> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continue -><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n This part is the fun one: all the design challenges you don\u2019t think about when you play a typing game, but have to learn the hard way when you develop one. I’ll try to highlight the main ones without complaining too much\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember that, in Textorcist, players are supposed to switch between the arrow keys to move and the keyboard to type? As Diego Sacchetti explains, \u201cwe must always keep in mind that dodging bullets requires looking at the screen while typing requires (very often) looking away from it. Switching your hands takes time and so the pacing in the game must leave some space for players to adapt. This means we had to add lots of different elements to help players perform both activities at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if you keep all inputs accessible from the typing position (which is what Epistory, Nanotale and Touch Type Tale do), players\u2019 typing skills range from the \u201cblind typing\u201d to the \u201chunt and peck\u201d methods. In other words, they are often not looking at the screen when performing an action. To make up for that irregular attention, important information displayed on screen must remain there longer than in a regular game, and feedback showing the direct result of an action must last longer or be delayed to give the player time to look up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is also why words displayed on the screen should not change without an action from the player. For example, an enemy that grows bigger and stronger over time might see its word change into a longer one. But there is a chance that the player is typing the previous word from memory, without looking at the screen, and will be frustrated to realize that the game has changed the rules without them noticing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most players do not look at the screen when typing.<\/strong> * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n The main challenge of a typing game is to type words properly. As with any game, failing this challenge can be frustrating if it feels unfair. Failing, in our case, means mistyping a word or sentence. The longer or more complex the word, the higher the probability of a mistype. Inexperienced typists, who put the most effort into playing, are even more prone to the frustrating errors. This is why the most important feedback of a typing game is to tell when the right letter is typed and when a wrong letter is typed. As we said before, it needs to be visual and audio because players that have typing difficulties are looking at their keyboard as they type. Perhaps a flashing effect on the whole screen (as an option) would help to catch the players\u2019 attention, but I never tested such a thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s generally best to avoid punishing mistypes too much. Ettome removed the penalty on mistakes after testing it in Typing Hearts because the time loss was a sufficient penalty. In most games, you lose a combo meter or a perfect strike, that is, a bonus, but you don\u2019t explicitly get a malus. In Epistory or Nanotale, wrong letters are ignored, but you have to type all the letters in order (you can\u2019t skip one). In Backspace Bouken, where you type full sentences, a mistyped word doesn’t deal damage to the enemy but you can just carry on with the rest of the sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a platformer, if you run off a platform and press the jump button too late, the game can fix your mistake by giving you a few frames after the avatar leaves the ground, during which the jump can still occur (often called \u201ccoyote time\u201d). We can eliminate some of the frustration of mistypes by using similar tricks that players may not notice. For example, in languages with accented characters, the game can accept the same character without accent. The letter \u201ce\u201d counts as \u201c\u00e9\u201d, \u201cc\u201d as \u201c\u00e7\u201d in French and \u201cn\u201d as \u201c\u00f1\u201d in Spanish. It helps if you missed the accent key (for keyboards where you have to press the accent then the letter), but also for players used to type without accents or who play with a keyboard lacking the accented characters (when learning a foreign language for example).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing you can do about [languages with special characters being harder]\u201d said Malte Hoffmann. \u201cYou could allow the player to just type the word without an accent, if you have an \u2018\u00e9\u2019 you can just type an \u2018e\u2019 but then it kind of misses the purpose of learning to type in French or German. So we decided to enforce the use of the umlaut and other accents.\u201d Taking it a step further, an auto-correct feature that counts \u201cWOX<\/mark><\/strong>D\u201d as valid for \u201cWOR<\/mark><\/strong>D\u201d would facilitate interactions even more. But then you\u2019re really removing the challenge of typing and just using it as an input method. At this point, why use typing at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n I said about Nanotale that all words displayed on screen are opportunities for interaction. While this is true, it also means that all opportunities for action have to be displayed as word prompts. Remembering command words by heart is not really fun and, even if you could start to remember them after a few hours of playing, you may take a long break and forget everything. That\u2019s why Epistory and Nanotale have their list of keywords in the UI at the bottom of the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a minimum text size to display readable words on a computer screen. There is also a maximum amount of words you can read and choose from in a reasonable amount of time. So if all the words the player is supposed to type are shown on screen, the limit you set for your game to avoid cluttering the screen gives you the maximum amount of direct actions available. If you want more, you will need word combinations (like Nanotale\u2019s spell casting), or multiple-step inputs (typing one word displays a selection of sub-words, and so on, like cascading menus).<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n The typable words have to be integrated into the game world in a way that fits the theme and make them stand out as typable. Players must be able to tell without hesitation what is typable and what is not. In Nanotale, the typable words are in a unique font, are white with a black outline, and are always capitalized. This code is constant in the game world, the menus and the dialogues with the NPCs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Malte, using a lot of text is a challenge for Touch Type Tale because \u201cnon-typable text is confusing in a typing game.\u201d They show non-typable text in a different font and on clearly delimited text boxes (dialogues and missions). \u201cIt\u2019s quite clear that it\u2019s not meant to be typed because it\u2019s on a text bubble. [Besides that], if we have text it\u2019s handwritten by our artist\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some players get used to typing everything.<\/strong> * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that our typable text is identifiable, players can type the word they want to, say, attack an enemy. But what happens if that word starts with the same letters as another available word? Because we don\u2019t know which word the player is actually looking at, we have to select all possible words simultaneously. In Typing Heart, both words are highlighted and the correct word is selected when the first discriminating letter is typed. The same is done in Epistory and Nanotale. Touch Type Tale goes further to avoid the confusing situation: \u201cThe algorithm always tries to give you a word with a starting letter that is not already used (on the screen)\u201d explains Malte Hoffman. \u201cWe also use, for languages where it\u2019s possible, capital letters as their own starting symbol. So for our game, capitalization matters.\u201d Using capital letters (which is left as an option that players can turn off) also allows players to easily switch to another word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Players should never be locked on the word they started typing because they might have selected it by mistake and because when the game state changes, they might want to do a different action. In Epistory and Nanotale, the game always checks if the letters you mistype can match another word. If the first two letters of another word are typed, it switches to typing that word. Note that even this method is not perfect. In rare cases, I have seen players mistype two letters that happened to match another word and be confused as to why the word they were looking at was reset. Touch Type Tale adds an animated circle feedback around the word when you start to type it to draw the player\u2019s attention to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the heat of the moment,<\/strong> * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want to go all-in on the typing, you should have menu navigation done with typing too. Maybe not those that are outside the game, like the options menu, but definitely those that are part of the game loop. Having to reach for the mouse breaks the typing flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Malte Hoffman, not having tooltips on mouse-over for a strategy game was the most difficult thing. Simple things like the cost of a building or the damage done by a unit are easily shown from a quick mouse-over. But not if you don\u2019t have a mouse. \u201cWe have to convey all of this through our interface and graphics, and at the same time not cluttering up everything by putting text on it, because text is confusing in a typing game because it looks like words you can type.\u201d The absence of mouse-over is also why Epistory\u2019s upgrade menu has to fit all upgrade descriptions in one page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continue -><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Balancing the difficulty of a typing game is a challenge that deserves its own section to go over everything you have to consider to do it right. The first thing to understand is that, within the typing game audience, there is no correlation between game literacy and typing speed. There are casual gamers typing at 120 words per minute because they type at work, and there are hardcore gamers who spend most of their time playing all sorts of games but never learned to touch type. This means gameplay difficulty and typing difficulty have to be evaluated separately. If there is a difficulty setting (or adaptive difficulty, we\u2019ll get back to that), it often makes sense to split game difficulty (for challenges not related to typing) and expected typing speed (to challenge typing speed or accuracy).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I believe the gap in typing speed is harder to bridge than the gap in game literacy or skills. Typing AGGRESSION to attack an enemy takes 6 seconds at 20 WPM but only 1.2 seconds at 100 WPM, which completely changes the pace of the game. Either we accept that the game is not accessible to everyone who can type, or it must adapt to its players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first metric we can use to evaluate difficulty is the word length. Touch Type Tale\u2019s algorithm generates words within the range specified by the designer. They usually choose between 4 and 6 letters, but there are specific cases where single letters or long words are used. The same goes in Epistory, where the word length depends on the enemy archetype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Nanotale, word length is less restricted because you receive mana for your spells when typing words (based on the square of the number of letters), so it compensates for the added challenge. Similarly, Typing Heart and Outshine give more points for longer words. In these cases, the word length is not used to manually set the difficulty in the level design, but the metric is still used to scale the reward with the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second metric we can play with is the time given to type each word. In Epistory, the difficulty setting only changes the speed of the enemies moving towards you (and the time between spawns during battles, which has the same effect). In Typing Hearts, the goal is to reach a given score before a time limit. A higher difficulty increases the target score, giving you more words to type in the same amount of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another possible metric is the complexity to type a word. As Diego Sacchetti says, \u201cyou must assign a difficulty to each word not only based on its length but also on the spatial relationship among all keys for that layout.\u201d While it’s true that BANANAS is faster to type than APRICOT, I think this is going too far for most use cases considering that it’s harder to automate than simply counting the letters in a word. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A more practical (although a bit subjective) metric is the players\u2019 familiarity with the word, or as Diego puts it, \u201chow likely it is that a word has been already typed by the player in everyday typing.\u201d An obscure or made-up word is harder to read, thus it takes more time to type correctly. \u201cWords like HELLO have been typed so many times by everyone that the finger movement pattern is completely memorised, like a move from a fighting game. A never-before-typed word with the same characters like \u2018Lohel\u2019 becomes more difficult to type just because there\u2019s no previous experience in typing it. [..] Since we integrate this word within the context of a meaningful sentence, finding the \u2018best\u2019 words to fit a difficulty curve can become a very hard task to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If, as in Textorcist, you have full sentences, then the number of words to type in a row is also a metric. Even without time pressure, more words equals more opportunities to make mistakes, so longer sentences are more difficult. In the long run, typing too much leads to attention fatigue and even physical pain. Gameplay phases where speed is encouraged should be limited to short sessions. In Outshine, for instance, Hugo Bourbon split the levels into three short sections for this very purpose. \u201cEach section is finished in about three minutes and concludes with a series of three sentences to type as fast as possible (to get more points).\u201d In-between sections, there is a break that can last as long as needed to recover. \u201cWith longer sessions of about four minutes, fast typers start to feel pain in their fingers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wrote above that gameplay difficulty and typing difficulty should be considered separately. Accordingly, their difficulty curves do not have to match, and they do not both have to increase over the course of the game. A game like Touch Type Tale develops the strategy aspect throughout the game and assumes a stable base level of typing skill: \u201cAs soon as you have an average typing speed, almost all of the difficulty in our game comes from the strategy, but if you\u2019re not good at typing, like if you are just starting to learn how to type and you have never used a keyboard before, then the difficulty will come from typing.\u201d Malte Hoffman compared this to other strategy games where players measure their APM (actions per minute). In Touch Type Tale, improving your WPM (words per minute) does help in some ways, \u201cbut there is a form of diminishing returns\u201d the higher you go. \u201cThere is a tipping point where it goes from being hard because of typing to being hard because of strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast, a game like Outshine has a difficulty curve that comes solely from the typing challenge, once you\u2019re familiar with the enemies behavior. \u201cThe huge gap in fire rate (typing speed) between players makes the balancing complicated\u201d explains Hugo Bourbon. That\u2019s why he offers five different difficulty levels (affecting speed and number of enemies) and optional “modifiers” for variety that fast typists use to increase the difficulty for themselves: resetting the word if you mistype, mirrored words, only the next three letters visible (forcing you to look at the screen), and even game over at the first mistype. \u201cThat\u2019s the most extreme, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s even possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One note while we\u2019re talking about challenging typing: players generally underestimate their typing skills because they\u2019ve never had to use them under pressure. While it creates a marketing problem with players thinking the game is not for them, it is something we can take advantage of in our design. The average typist regularly glances at their keyboard but intuitively knows the key positions. If you push them to type faster, they tap into that muscle memory and do better than they expect (at the cost of more mistypes, though, so maybe don\u2019t challenge accuracy during those frenetic typing phases). Even if challenging typing is not the core of the game, I believe a bit of stress highlights the key moments, as we did at the last wave of Epistory\u2019s battle phases. You can always cheat to achieve the desired effect without any real risk of failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n With a wide range of typing skills, some designers naturally want their game to adapt to players. When designing Typing Hearts, Ettome thought to himself \u201cI want an adaptive difficulty!\u201d He made an onboarding phase where players type for narrative choices, from which he also gets speed and accuracy data. The first battle in Epistory acts as a tutorial and is very easy. If the player fails that battle, there is a special trigger that drastically reduces the difficulty. On Backspace Bouken, Benjamin Bushe and Jake White also use the first tutorial encounter to get your typing speed and set the game difficulty from a list of 3 presets. Setting the difficulty at the beginning is nice, but they told me they would have liked to keep it adaptive through the entire game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Epistory, the difficulty is a hidden value that is adjusted from the player\u2019s successes and failures during the game. For example, winning a battle increases the value by 10, losing decreases it by 20, and being killed by a roaming enemy decreases it by 2 (I don\u2019t recall the exact values, but this gives you an idea). What I didn\u2019t like about this method is that gameplay and typing difficulty are mixed: losing a battle because you don\u2019t adapt your strategy still makes the enemies slower. Losing two or three times in a row makes the difference noticeable and players, who are still typing at the same speed, feel cheated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Nanotale, we changed the evaluation method to a continuous evaluation of the player\u2019s WPM. The time between each character input is counted, starting after the first letter of each word. The last 50 typing sessions are saved (typing several words in a row counts as one typing session) and averaged to get a WPM value that affects the speed of enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This new system works well for Nanotale, where the gameplay revolves around puzzle solving and combat tactics. But adjusting the difficulty too precisely can become a problem if the game challenges typing fast at its core. Ettome had a prototype where the score objective was adjusted to match the number of points players should be able to get within the time limit. The difficulty was so close to what the player was capable of that there was no challenge. His playtesters always beat the levels just within the time limit, and the game experience was poor. Eventually, he developed another metric to replace the classic WPM, the \u201cAPPC\u201d. It stands for average point per character, which is how many points a player is able to get out of one typed character on average (taking points multipliers into account).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, he added the player\u2019s ability to strategize to maximize the multiplier into the mix\u2014the opposite of what I said I wanted after Epistory. The lesson here, I guess, is that as a designer, you want control over simple metrics, so you understand how your adaptive difficulty works and are able to tweak it. But for the players, the effects of the adaptive difficulty have to be \u201cblurred\u201d and smoothed out, so they don\u2019t notice it (and feel like it\u2019s the natural progression of the game).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless of how (and if) you implement adaptive difficulty, it\u2019s important to be transparent with players and give them options. In Nanotale, for example, you can enable the adaptive difficulty, in which case the WPM calculated by the game is displayed in the options menu. You can also disable it and select your own WPM value for the game. We don\u2019t have \u201ceasy\u201d or \u201chard\u201d levels for typing speed, which would be arbitrary and judgemental. Instead we have \u201c20 WPM\u201d, \u201c30 WPM\u201d, and so on up to \u201c120 WPM\u201d. There are also a few accessibility options (like auto health regeneration) but those are separated from the typing level on purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Sophie Schiaratura, our PR and marketing manager, the adaptive difficulty is a feature that people like. Being able to say \u201cdon\u2019t worry, the difficulty automatically adapts to everyone\u201d is reassuring for those who believe they aren’t good at typing and for parents who want the game to teach their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a large diversity of game literacy<\/strong> There are other design challenges that I left out to avoid making this part way too long. You can find more in the final \u201cbonus\u201d section, including how language and cultural differences influence the typing difficulty. But for now, let\u2019s dig deeper into the typing gameplay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continue -><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n\n\n\n .<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wrote that being able to move in Nanotale\u2019s battles added spatial agency\u2014the opportunities for positioning and movement offered by the level design. The Typing of the Dead, the first major typing game, offered no freedom of movement because it was based on a rail shooter. But modern typing games tend to add a controllable character (maybe because we are all used to that from the games we play). Tybot Invasion: The Typing Runner<\/a> has three horizontal lanes you can use to avoid enemies. Changing lanes is done by typing a word, so the typing mechanic remains unchanged. Outshine<\/a>, on the contrary, has five vertical lanes you can switch to by pressing left SHIFT and right SHIFT (or CTRL). Using a simple button press to move, they challenge the player\u2019s reactivity to dodge obstacles. Indeed, the typing input is not suited to free movement, and that makes controlling a character a big constraint: either you simplify the movement, or you use non-typing controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first prototype of Epistory featured a tile-by-tile movement on a grid: each of the four directions had a letter that you pressed to move to the next tile (we made that prototype available here<\/a>, if you\u2019re curious). After multiple attempts to make it smoother, we realized that this type of movement would always be a bigger hurdle for the players than the typing itself, so we replaced it with a free movement. This solution entails that players have to switch between the movement mode and the typing mode, and we used the space bar for this. Nanotale has the same 3Cs and follows the same system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Epistory\u2019s tutorial about using EFIJ to move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though we could have used the arrow keys to move without having to switch between modes, we didn\u2019t want players to have to move their hands on the keyboard. That\u2019s also why the default key binding uses E, F, I, and J to move (in diagonals), which matches the default hand position on a keyboard. About half of the players preferred to switch to WASD or ESDF. The latter is a good compromise between a pattern players are used to and the correct finger placement, so Nanotale now uses ESDF by default.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Textorcist features both typing and movement in parallel. As explained earlier by Diego Sacchetti, \u201cswitching from one side to another of the keyboard is part of the experience.\u201d But they also offer other options: \u201cApart from the basic solution we implemented SHIFT+WASD or SHIFT+IJKL movement (rebindable to fit other keyboard layouts).\u201d Backspace Bouken, which is an old-school dungeon crawler, uses the arrow keys for its first-person tile-based movement. But in this case, movement is limited to the exploration gameplay, which doesn\u2019t happen at the same time as the typing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n One way to move with typing commands is to limit it to fixed positions where you can display a word. For example, in an internal prototype, we tried to use covers to justify a node-based movement, essentially creating a cover shooter typing game. The complexity of such a node-based movement depends on how many nodes you display on the screen. The more options you have, the more agency you give, but the more it clutters the screen and distracts from the rest of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Nanotale, we introduce a teleportation <\/strong>feature mid-game that not only adds a typing element in the exploration game loop (some secret areas require teleportation), but also makes the instantiated battles more dynamic. While it\u2019s possible to move freely with WASD in the battles, the amount of enemies coming towards you makes it difficult to focus out of the typing to move. The teleportation feature offers limited movement options, but given the context, it\u2019s the easiest way to move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Ettome experimented with typing mechanics, he also tried to move an avatar by using words as targets and letting the avatar follow its own pathfinding. But he didn\u2019t keep the avatar because he really saw typing as \u201cI\u2019m set on my keyboard and I only do typing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s indeed easier to make a typing game without an avatar or a camera that requires movement controls. So how does it work in Touch Type Tale, a typing strategy game with a fixed top view camera? \u201cThe reason why there is no camera movement is a direct result of it being a typing game\u201d said Malte. An early design of the game had minions moving on lanes like a tower defense and you could redirect them on a different lane. But switching lanes created downtime where you had to wait without typing, which wasn\u2019t good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Touch Type Tale – Strategic Typing<\/a> uses keywords to give In the current version, you give directions to your units on which paths to take to go fight the enemy units. Words are displayed around each crossroad so that you can select a path for your troops by typing them. By the way, that strategic unit placement is a form of spatial agency. Interestingly, they eventually put back camera movement to make some levels bigger. \u201cWe now have levels in the campaign where you control the camera with IJKL (the right hand counterpart of WASD), and what we do is we just don\u2019t show words that start with those letters. So you really constrain the amount of words you can show and it wouldn\u2019t work for a general typing game, but for some missions we have done that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The typing input cannot naturally control movement.<\/strong> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Continue -><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Fortunately, spatial agency is just one way to add depth to a game. The typing input is still largely unexplored, which means there are opportunities for new ways to play with it. How far can we really push it, then? To answer this question, we must once again start with the limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we stick to our definition of a typing game as having to type words as an input, then the typing input might be a limiting factor to gameplay variety. But we can make deep gameplay with simple controls, right? We all have in mind the classic example of Mario\u2019s jump, very versatile with only one button. Same thing in a shooting game, playing with a mouse: click once to shoot, click in rapid succession to shoot repeatedly, hold to charge a shot and then release, hold and move your aim with a flamethrower, and so on. Sadly, using typing as an input has two major limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first is the impracticality of having variations equivalent to holding or repeatedly pressing a button. Before we started developing Nanotale, we experimented with unusual ways of handling typing: typing random patterns, numbers or scrambled words is different from normal typing but not really more fun. Typing in rhythm is harder than it seems (you can test that by trying to type along a karaoke video). Having to type at a low speed, for example to whisper as not to wake up a monster, is also quite frustrating. Typing slower than what you\u2019re used to simply goes against your muscle memory. You can try Waves teaches typing<\/a> (from Ludum Dare 46) to test for yourself. The takeaway from our experiments is that typing works because we are used to type existing words in a straightforward way, and deviating from that becomes unintuitive and frustrating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second constraint is the delay between the moment you read a word and the moment you finish typing it. There is what I would call a \u201cnatural input lag\u201d with typing that has to be taken into account. As we mentioned earlier, this delay varies widely depending on the player: from almost instantaneous input while focused on the screen, to several seconds long while looking at the keyboard. And if an input requires a combination of words, the gap obviously gets worse. This means that, while you can challenge typing speed, challenging the timing of typing becomes very tricky. It\u2019s tricky as a designer, and it feels wrong to the players. In Nanotale, you type one to three keywords to build a spell, then a target word to cast it. In some cases, you want to cast your spell at a precise moment. To do so, experienced players type the word at normal speed but wait before typing the last letter (making it a one-button input). The ability to prepare a spell in advance is intentional (if you switch to movement mode and back to typing mode, your spell is saved), but the \u201cstop and start\u201d method is emergent. Players feel smart when they think of it, but I don’t want them to play like this all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While there are interesting things to do with the typing input (and probably more to be invented), typing a word, as a physical input, lacks versatility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typing words is a simple input with a delay.<\/strong> * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the first section, we said that it\u2019s unavoidable that players understand the meaning of the words they type, and that we should take advantage of this, for example by using words whose meaning corresponds to the action or context. This meaning can be leveraged to create variety simply by changing the lexical field, writing style or language register. Even though the player\u2019s fingers are making the exact same movement (you\u2019re still typing a word), it feels different because of the players\u2019 interpretation of the word. This is not a physical variation but a mental one. I\u2019m not pretending it\u2019s equivalent to the input versatility we can have with gamepad controls, but it\u2019s an opportunity that can be explored specifically with typing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Benjamin Bushe and Jake White, in Backspace Bouken (where you have to type lines of dialogues from the enemies), the variation comes a lot from the writing, especially the different style used for each boss. In Ettome\u2019s dating sim Typing Hearts, the different love interests have preferred conversation topics, so typing words matching those scores more points. While you don\u2019t need to read the words to choose which one to type because they are color coded by category, we can imagine a game in which you get to decide which word to type based on your interpretation of their meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the last part of Textorcist, the spells you have to type switch to Latin. \u201cIn the beginning the spells are all in English and while some players may be more comfortable typing in that language than others, we can all say we have already typed those words before in our lives,\u201d explains Diego Sacchetti. \u201cWhen we reach the final stages and face real ancient demons, the typing switches to Latin. This fits the story and also raises the difficulty accordingly. Switching to Latin also puts all players on the same level because almost nobody is comfortable typing Latin, players just never did it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each of Textorcist\u2019s bosses also offers a twist on the typing challenge: \u201cMagda barfs at you which covers the text so you must proceed by memory. Matthew generates bombs that must be disarmed by typing words like \u201cDEFUSE\u201d or \u201dDEMILITARIZE\u201d in a short time span. [There are] upside down words, singing at the microphone (suddenly changing the words to type), characters replaced with 0s and 1s, quakes that mix all characters within a word among the others.\u201d You can see that some challenge reading or memorization and some require typing something other than words. The latter is not typing per se (in the sense that you can\u2019t use muscle memory for it), but it does show that there are clever ways to twist the typing mechanic if you type other things than words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Backspace Bouken<\/a>\u2019s boss with glitched text that you have to type carefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The boss variations of Backspace Bouken also include complex unusual words, symbols like \u201c#@$!\u201d that represent curse words, and glitched words with randomly capitalized letters or letters replaced with numbers. Those variations don\u2019t take away the meaning of the words (in the case of Backspace Bouken, they even reinforce the theme of the boss) but still change the way you type them. This makes the players think about what and how they type, pay more attention to their keyboard to find the special characters, and, in a way, breaks the fourth wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Epistory, we have doors that are blocked by two mirrored statues, each with a word to type that mirrors the other, like \u201cDRAWER\u201d – \u201cREWARD\u201d or \u201cDENIER\u201d – \u201cREINED\u201d. Independently, those are ordinary words. When typed one after the other, they lead the players to think of them differently. It creates a brief but nice \u201caha!\u201d moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still in Epistory, we used patterns of letters for variations, like repeating \u201cASDF ASDF ASDF ASDF\u201d to open a mechanical bridge. There are also paper walls that you slash through by typing a full line of the keyboard (like \u201cQWERTYUIOP\u201d). When players realize that they can do it simply by sliding their finger, it\u2019s another \u201caha\u201d moment\u2014they understand something new about their keyboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ll close with Touch Type Tale, which features a side mission with a rhythm game \u201cwhere you basically use your keyboard as a piano keyboard.\u201d It challenges timing, which I claimed to be frustrating, but here it\u2019s fine because the players aren\u2019t typing words at all. More importantly, these kinds of variations occur exceptionally as a break from the core experience. Malte Hoffmann and his team \u201ctry to play around with things like using patterns on the keyboard on bonus missions and extra gimmicky stuff, to have a bit of a playful layer where you can just experience something then move on to the normal gameplay.\u201d Those situations are not the \u201cnormal gameplay\u201d because players are using the same controller (the keyboard) but not using typing words as an input\u2014that\u2019s what I would call exotic gameplay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you want exotic typing gameplay?<\/strong> * * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although they are harder to find, I believe there are ways to make players think critically about typing without resorting to exotic or gimmicky mechanics. Here are two examples of mechanics that add a second layer of depth to the typing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember when we talked about selecting which typed word to highlight if multiple words start with the same letters? I said that Typing Heart highlights all possible words simultaneously, until a differentiating letter is typed. What I left out is that, sometimes, a short word can be included within a longer word. When you type \u201cFLOWERLESS\u201d, for instance, you also type \u201cFLOWER\u201d and \u201cFLOW\u201d. In Epistory, we have avoided these cases by keeping only one of each word in our dictionaries. But for Ettome, \u201cthat brought an interesting mechanic: if you have a word with a prefix, you can write a word that contains another word and so write two words in one. The most hardcore of my playtesters kept some words on the grid to wait for their double and score more points.\u201d While he doesn\u2019t make similar words appear together on purpose (that is not the direction he wants for the game), I think it qualifies as typing gameplay depth: advanced players reach a deeper layer of understanding of the system and optimize their play by thinking critically about their typing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another example of this lies at the core of Backspace Bouken\u2018s gameplay. The game started at a ludum dare with the theme \u201cout of space\u201d, which gave them the idea of using space characters as a resource. You collect them from sign posts from which you delete the text, and then consume them when you type to fight enemies. Benjamin Bushe and Jake White told me that it was a real challenge when it came to the writing of the text to be typed, because they had to make sure players could collect enough spaces to type the whole text. But what caught my attention is that it led them to add \u201cthe contraction mechanic:\u201d when you type a sentence, you are encouraged to alter the text to use contractions (\u201cDo not\u201d \u2192 \u201cDon\u2019t\u201d, \u201cI will\u201d \u2192 \u201cI\u2019ll\u201d), saving you precious spaces and a bit of time. They tried to give as many opportunities for contraction as possible in their writing for players who think about using it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gameplay depth comes from thinking critically<\/strong> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n1. What is a typing game?<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
First, what a typing game is not<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Typoman.gif?resize=600%2C338&ssl=1\")
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As a game mechanic, it has variations and can be used in different ways to give different game feels. Variations on how to type as well as what to type (we will come back to this several times).
As a game mechanic, typing is internalized by players as one action. When playing a platformer, you don\u2019t think about pressing a button, you just jump. When you type, don\u2019t think about a sequence of letters; the whole word is read by your brain as one thing and typed in one go. Muscle memory makes typing known words a single input.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Set up your main challenges in relation to typing: speed, accuracy, word reading\u2026
Reward good typing: bonus points for fast typing, combo for no mistake\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Words-for-Evil.gif?resize=600%2C338&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nTyping words as an input<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Tap into the players\u2019 muscle memory to make the inputs feel immediate. Use one word (or a short sentence) as one input.
Keep in mind that random strings of letters or very uncommon words will focus the players\u2019 attention on the fact that they are typing.
Try to use typing for all interactions and avoid using mouse controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/typing-hearts.gif?resize=800%2C450&ssl=1\")
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<\/strong>All words or sentences used as inputs have to be read, understood and typed by the players. Their meaning is passed on, even subconsciously. Use it to your advantage and avoid creating dissonance with out-of-context words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Nanotale.gif?resize=800%2C450&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/textorcist.gif?resize=800%2C450&ssl=1\")
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to justify the use of that unusual input.
<\/strong>The typing interaction makes more sense and is more easily accepted if your character is actually typing, writing, talking, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe educational stigma<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
When presenting or marketing your typing game, think about how it can be interpreted as educational (catchphrases like \u201cuse your typing skills\u201d, \u201cget better during your adventure\u201d, \u201clearn new abilities\u201d…) to avoid being dismissed as \u201cnot a real game\u201d.
Be ready to answer the \u201ceducational\u201d question from players and journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe classic formula<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Typing-of-the-Dead.gif?resize=800%2C450&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/TypeRacer.gif?resize=800%2C450&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Typing-of-the-Undead.gif?resize=800%2C450&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n2. Modern typing game design<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Mixing typing with other genres<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/TouchTypeTale.gif?resize=800%2C450&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BackspaceBouken.gif?resize=600%2C338&ssl=1\")
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but it\u2019s also foreign and intimidating.
<\/strong>Incorporating this novel experience into a well-established genre helps inexperienced players understand what the game is about and not feel lost.
Leverage the depth of other genres and their familiarity among players to help in the game\u2019s design and marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\nApplying game design notions<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/epistory-battle.gif?resize=800%2C450&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/nanotale_words.png?resize=924%2C520&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
does not leave players any agency.
<\/strong>Give players meaningful choices with multiple viable options. Allow optimization by understanding the system and making good choices, and reward it (get a higher score, finish a battle faster, kill multiple enemies at once\u2026).
Frame typing as an opportunity rather than a constraint and use it to expand the possibility space.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe challenges of the typing input<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Take into account the inconsistent visual attention in the timing of the signs and feedback. Sound is helpful in this context, but remember that not all players hear well or play with sound.
Don\u2019t change or remove the typable words without clear feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Differentiate clearly between typable and non-typable text (font, capitalization, color, context) to avoid the frustration of false or hidden affordances: typing non-typable text or missing typable text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
players pay attention to one word at a time.
<\/strong>Allow players to intuitively select a word, even if they are already typing another.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBalancing difficulty<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
and typing skills in the population of players<\/strong>
Think of gameplay difficulty and typing speed as separate metrics.
Adaptive difficulty can make the game feel dull if implemented poorly, but it opens the game to a much larger audience if done well.
Leave players options to customize at least the typing side of their experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n3. Finding gameplay depth<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Typing with an avatar<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/epistory_tuto.png?resize=924%2C520&ssl=1\")
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
move orders to units on a node-based path movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moving an avatar, a camera, or anything on two axes (as we are used to) cannot be done with typing without losing freedom and responsiveness. Avoid it if you don\u2019t want to make exceptions to the typing input.
Nonetheless, you can restrict the positioning options (using lanes or nodes) to add spatial agency to your design.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTyping depth and versatility<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Variations on how to type are limited and feel less natural because they go against the players\u2019 muscle memory. In particular, challenging timing pushes players to wait to type the last letter of a word. Games without time pressure will work better with typing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/david-bailly.com\/portfolio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/BackspaceBouken_glitch.png?resize=924%2C520&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Typing games are an opportunity to play with the keyboard in fun exotic ways. But the most original variations inevitably stray away from real typing (which is not necessarily bad).
Thinking about the keyboard while playing also breaks the immersion.
Be in control of what you lead your players to expect from the game and decide if and where non-typing gameplay suits the experience. In other words, do you want your players to be aware of their keyboard or not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
about what and how you are typing.<\/strong>
Use the meaning conveyed through language to get players to think critically about what they are typing. Examples include lexical fields, word complexity, different registers, and different languages.
If possible, add depth by giving opportunities to optimize how players type, and reward those who do so (radicals included in other words as in Typing Hearts, contractions as in Backspace Bouken\u2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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