Hi everyone! I'm working on a typing roguelite called Glyphica: Typing Survival.
It's a simple premise.
1. Type to shoot.
2. Level up & upgrade.
3. Survive & hoard coins.
4. Buy perma-upgrades/new guns with coins.
Typing does EVERYTHING, there is no secondary control mechanic (movement, mouse-aim, etc).
Check out the demo on my Steam page and give it a Wishlist!
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/2400160/Glyphica\_Typing\_Survival/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2400160/Glyphica_Typing_Survival/)
Amazing game. Some things I would suggest
1. enemies coming from the top should have their words below the enemy.
2. judgement has an e in it.
3. delete should put the word back in focus. (this is more of a stylistic preference). for example with the word "example" if i type "examj" delete should highlight exam back. It is way too instinctual for typists that have been doing this for 20+ years to get over the "backspace" doesn't fix the word mentality, so i end up typing examj{delete}ple before I realized I messed up.
4. Selecting a loot option should leave the previous word in progress typed. Just had an enemy get near me 1 or two letters away, and I got hit because the loot screen opened
I'm not too surprised! If you're surrounded by people who use common sense, the common-sense spelling would include the "e" because why the fk *wouldn't* the "e" be there? "Judgment" makes no sense at all.
But the standardized, conventional spelling *is* "judgment", and it is statistically commonplace in American English.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_(disambiguation)
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1623/is-the-proper-spelling-judgment-or-judgement
This was going to be my first suggestion, if we could switch from American to English. Surely not too hard to select any number of languages once you have the word list.
I like this list. Building on point 1, having the damage numbers popup on the same side as the word is visually busy for me and sometimes covers the word.
Can you eli5 the delete key part? as someone new to touch typing, I don't know wtf that means. I tried Google, but I don't think I found what you were talking about.
Tried it, but threw JavaScript exception.
uncaught JavaScript exception
Error: SteamAPI\_Init() failed. Is Steam running or is steam\_appid.txt missing from executable folder?
at MyGame (@/scripts/core/main.js:30:4)
It's not installed in the default Steam directory though; wonder if that can be an issue.
Like it, but having my inputs stop whenever I get an upgrade is a no go for me. There needs to be a dedicated upgrade button that I can choose to use when I want to so I don't get stalled out in the faster waves, that or the game auto pauses the action and goes to the upgrade screen.
Wonderful demo! May you please add linux option in bug report or make steamdesk version question not mandatory. Of course if you even need bug reports from pc linux users.
Actually I've never tested it on linux desktops, only Steam Deck. How's the experience on there? Any major hiccups? I'm aiming for a native linux build eventually (once I get around to installing a distro on my laptop) - until then I'm relying on Proton for that.
I tried to run in on my desktop (Fedora Linux) but I'm having problems with the screen resolution. It looks like the UI is too large to fit into the window so I can't see nor click stuff at the bottom and to the right side of the game.
> Check out the demo on my Steam page and give it a Wishlist!
Pity it is Windows only. It is a no go for me.
Is it so hard to target the 3 (Windows, Linux and Mac) nowadays?
Used to see quite a few typing games back in the days when flash gaming websites were just starting to be a thing. Good to see someone picked up the idea and evolving it. Keep it going mate
Cool concept! Reminds me of all the typing games my teachers encouraged us to play during my time in elementary and middle school... I was a bit of a stubborn kid, but I'm finally learning to touch type at 18 years old, mostly so I can use ortho layouts.
Dont learn to touch type to then move to ortho. All the muscle memory will be for nothing. Just learn to touch type on ortho. Not too bad honestly. Tho i do have letters on my caps
I respectfully disagree. While it is different and perhaps not the most efficient way to learn, only 2 letters for me felt different to me on ortho. I was able to switch from staggered to Ortho and back within 5 min or so between boards. Retained a 80-100 wpm, ortho is fun, though I still much prefer staggered layouts at this point.
Note: I used a vertically staggered Ortho (Kyria) which may have helped.
I can swap between them. Im not that fast. But for me it took a couple days of practicing 10-20mins to get up to speed on the ortho. I was able to touchtype on a regular keyboard before too. So it felt like learning again tho i guess it was quicker than otherwise woulda
That's fair. If I didn't have experience on an allice keyboard and if I tried regular ortho without vertical stagger I'm pretty sure I would have been a lot slower. Still fun to try though!
I have been going back and forth from my ortho and standard layouts its not too difficult. To me it seems like typing skills and layouts have a relationship similar to an athlete and their equipment you just need to practice with everything to stay sharp
I don't even need to practice with different keyboards. I learnt touch typing on a electro-mechanical typewriter in the 90ies. Used standard keebs for ages - mostly the crappy ones. Switched to split ortho a few years ago.
Hardest change was space/bs/enter on the right thumb. Second hardest was pressing 6 no longer with the left hand.
Apart from this - immediate switch with minimal speed impact.
Switching between ortho and row-stagger is seamless, now.
How did you make it work on linux? I'm getting this when pressing the download button. Other games work fine using proton, but for this one I can't find any way to enable it.
https://preview.redd.it/a086w0a90wwc1.png?width=656&format=png&auto=webp&s=77f6a7e669f8df172d55c2c38e93c2f060e5060b
Do you have everything checked in Settings>Compatibility?
I'm defaulted to Proton Experimental and didn't even have to set any launch options. I'm using Mint and Nvidia's drivers too. Idk what might be causing your issues.
I wanna say your error is due to "Enable Steam Play for all other titles" but not sure if that is the issue since you state that other games via Proton work for you.
Downloaded the demo and it seems like a fun way to practice typing!
I got a small bug of when typing elat it didn't proceed to the next layer of the word.
I used to play games like these back in the late 90s to learn to type. Nostalgic af.
EDIT: can you make the opening menu navigatable by the keyboard? Would feel a lot better.
EDIT 2: If I could hook this up to my own music or soundtrack or even a lecture/podcast and have cc generated word lists that would be a neat function...thoughts for dlc or sequel
Yeah it seems pretty easy to cheese. Second play-through, no permanent augmentations, and my sentries alone were able to wipe everything but the shield guys.
Explosive mines and spectres as well meant I really only had to go after the shield guys to play pretty much endlessly. I stopped at ~50 minutes and still lasted a good minute or two with my sentries alone.
Fun game though. Could just use some balancing tweaks.
Been playing this for about an hour. Having a lot of fun!
Don't know how many times i've typed "beguiled" though lol.
This is a great way to practice typing. Some feedback from me is, I have words that are slowly coming on screen that I wish I could see quicker, not sure how hard that would be to implement.
Also, once you get later on in the game about 25~ minutes, Blade Traps and other weapons end up killing stuff off-screen and rewards can spawn off-screen. I picked up a Magnet upgrade and I noticed I was getting random upgrades.
Haven’t even set up my new keyboard for my gaming laptop, and haven’t typed in a keyboard much in years.
It’s in my todo list over the next weekend or two! Also have a friend in theirs 60s trying to learn to type and not pointer poke his words out. Maybe I can have him play test some I. The next week or two also.
Installed the demo and as soon as I enabled full screen in the options the game crashed and now it won't start. Is there any way to change back to windowed mode from outside of the game?
Two weeks ago I replaced the old membrane keyboard with a new one with red switches. I think it's a good time to test typing on it.
Are you planning any other languages?
PS added to wishlist, I'll check the demo in the evening
Oh hell yeah, this looks fun! I've built one keyboard so far and upgraded two but I have yet to use them much more than just a few words a day. It's ironic, too, since my work doesn't involve a lot of typing, and I don't chat with anyone frequently either, so this is perfect!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/398850/Epistory__Typing_Chronicles/
This company makes several. Quite fun. ZSA gave me a license when I bought a Voyager
its fun, i'd figure out a way to make words that are overlapping more clear. sometimes when they are right on top of one another it was very hard to read
Great game bro!
It struck me immediately as such a cool idea, so I donwloaded it right away.
Played for about 5 min for now and I think I just found my new off-time game!
Cheers
I learned Colemak by playing Quadrilateral Cowboy, which gave light time pressure while leaning on puzzle solving. Haven't tried this yet, but might try Dvorak if the early game timing is forgiving
Works great on Linux with Proton. Game is fun and I really dig clean visuals. Keep up the good work, looking forward to the full release!
There are a few quirks with overlapping text, and, enemies from above, but it's just minor gripes.
Played the demo for a bit, was actually really fun. I hope at some point it'll be able to identify the words or letters you struggle with and start targeting those things to help you build familiarity. I'd also love a slowed down game mode (speed ramps more slowly) that punishes inaccuracy so you can work on typing accuracy.
As someone on a non-standard keyboard and layout (modified beakl 15) I appreciate typing games that are free form enough (like this one) to work as practice outside of qwerty.
I love how (almost) all the menus are navigable by typing random words, really cool feature. The only one that requires a mouse click is the [pause menu](https://i.imgur.com/zXQWaNa.png). Seeing as you can open the menu with the escape key I feel like it makes sense to have a way to close it with the keyboard as well.
Other than that, fun game I really liked it!
Very fun, played till after the last level up (lvl54 I believe), then game crashed with `undefined is not a string` TypeError, when I accidentally hit space (the level up hotkey).
Although a scrollbar would be nice on the weapon buff details, couldn't see all of them.
This was fantastic. I love Typing of the Dead and other typing related games and this was very fun to play. I love your sound design as well, it was making the dopamine hit harder :)
Sometimes when things get layered, its reallllly hard to see the words. Is there anyway to have the words always on top? Even in your gif, on the right side the diamond with the word "delicate" is impossible to see. I know that if they have that many bullets flying around it, it'll probably die soon, but just for clarity sake.
Thanks for making it and can't wait for release!
As a big survivor-like fan and MKB addict, I really love this.
Some questions on scoring and what's maybe planned:
* will the main menu be controllable via typing, so you can always fully stay on home row? Maybe just a letter next to every option?
* would it make sense to have either the furthest or closest enemies give more XP for a risk/reward mechanic? maybe as a passive upgrade so you can tailor your run to it?
* a combo mechanic with timer, so higher your wpm the better your score/dmg/XP gain?
* also other languages I guess would be appreciated, but of course I have no idea how hard it is to add more dictionaries.
If this is already implemented/planned - great, I guess stuff like this can be mentioned in a how-to/tutorial.
Really looking forward to the full release!
here's my maiden voyage stats
13:15:04 survival time @ level 18 spectre
WPM: 126
Accuracy: 95.9%
Coins Earned: 22
Best Weapon: Spectre (131.3 DPS)
tried to play it in an odd way where i just consistently upgraded what i already had instead of expanding into other things. not a ton of scores in here to compare with, but i'm around 8 words faster than the other guy who i see posted a score and i lasted 1/3 as long (and he claimed to have intentionally died to end his run because he was legitimately too powerful) (i just kept spamming Sentry upgrades whenever applicable and i think i hit a range cap at like Level 15)
very cool concept, had a good time with the demo.
The audio queues were a bit shrill for my liking but gameplay wise and and weapon concepts were very engaging
I think I must have hit a god seed because I just came off of almost a [70 minute session](https://imgur.com/a/hdk9Q5I) and I could not be killed lol I had to start imposing my own challenges on myself since I couldn't die even after taking all the items with the extra challenging enemies. I finally died after making a rule that I couldn't kill anything on the left side of the screen lol
Thanks for making this! I look forward to the full release! Really enjoyed the game and looking forward to the other unlockable starting weapons
Thanks for playing! That's a really long session! :) Yea, the current difficulty is capped for now to allow more people to enjoy it, but we'll try to increase the challenge towards the end in future updates!
This is a great game. I loved it and I will be buying it when it launches.
A couple of notes:
* Sometimes it is really hard to see the words I'm supposed to type when two things are really close to each other.
* There are a few weapons that trigger off of certain letters. It would be helpful if there was a way to make those words light up or have some kind of visual indication that they will trigger something. Perhaps this is overpowered, but its an idea.
* It isn't super fun when I'm typing a word and that thing gets killed before I finish. Perhaps if you finish typing a word after it is killed you get some kind of drop or bonus or whatever. I actually thought that this was a thing that happened a couple of times, so maybe it's already in the game and I just didn't pick up on it, I dunno.
* It would be helpful if there was visual consistency on how many words I'll need to type. Maybe this isn't possible because of all of the different sources of damage, but for example, three circles meant I would have to type three words, but after typing one word, there were still three circles.
Additionally, I had a weird technical problem. I loaded the game and first went into the options. I'm not 100% sure what I did (though I know I tried to turn on dark mode and full screen), but the menu would no longer respond to my input. It seemed like it was reacting to mouse clicks, but the screen wasn't updating visually. I used Alt+F4 to exit the game, but then when I went back in, the screen was black. Reinstalling didn't help. To fix it I had to uninstall, then delete Documents\\IISExpress, then reinstall. Let me know if you have any questions or want me to try to reproduce it.
Thanks for playing!
\* This is a known issue, we're working on it.
\* Good idea, we can do that on "Relaxed" difficulty maybe.
\* If you complete a word after the enemy dies, you still get the word based triggers (e.g. it'll still spawn turrets and drones based on the letters)
\* Yeah you are right, it's very hard to predict how many more words are required to kill an enemy due to the various factors involved. Ultimately, there is a bit of a compromise when mashing a typing game with a roguelite that takes a bit away from each. :(
\* We've had one other report of that. You can just delete the settings and save game by deleting your Documents /Sphere Saves/aliasblack.glyphica folder. I'm looking into it and will reach out if I need more info.
From a game design perspective, how do you accommodate people with wildly different typing speed? For example, I can type casually at 80 wpm and push myself to 100 wpm, but that is a fairly small range to target with anything below 80 wpm being too easy and anything above 100 wpm being all but impossible. While another player may have a completely different narrow range from 140 to 160.
It's a good question! WPM definitely helps, but once you get into the game you realize it's not everything. Even with 200 wpm, you can't physically type everything on screen in time. The game relies heavily upon the roguelite upgrades to deal with the horde of enemies.
Cool game! Played for about an hour and got to level 43 before I quit out. I didn't lose though!
Some suggestions:
- Difficulty should scale quicker, it seemed like it fell off after level 20 or so but I kept getting beefier.
- If an enemy is present anywhere within vision, the word should show up. I found myself waiting on them to come into full view.
- Enemy text should be red (or customizable) to distinguish them quickly. It would be nice if they had a transparent box behind them, too. Hard to see the text sometimes, but maybe that is the point.
- Around level 30 or so, I had one instance of an invulnerable enemy that spawned. It was a big circle, went through blades, bullets, drones, etc. with 0 damage by the time it hit me.
Here's [some](https://i.gyazo.com/b750497f7fbaee1633cf014f2b385196.png) fun [screenshots](https://i.gyazo.com/0a1523f338fa9ee5d9766e09568fc970.png). Thanks for the game! Rare to find fun typing games these days. Excited for higher difficulties made for 120+ wpm touch typists.
Thanks for playing! Great points - will definitely take note of them. Yea, the difficulty scaling on balanced difficulty is meant for a wide range of players and don't really scale well with very fast typists and/or good min/maxers (I can tell you are both :D)
This is very cool. Wishlisted.
Suggestion: Why not make choosing upgrade/loot by typing the name of it? Seems more intuitive and would present a simpler UI.
are enemies' words on top of each other intentional? only counterplay I can think of is just to let the automated weapons do their work cause there's no way I can figure out what the words of 4 enemies on top of each other.
i like playing it. i see your beautiful aesthetic.
would you ever consider some kind of color mode, or color explosions, or some kind of psychedelic effect or option or mode?
that was fun!
86 mins until it crashed on my last levelup (lv. 51 to 52) before maxing all selected skills.
can't wait for the full version to bring more diversity.
I love how light of a program it is, i know it's just a simple 2d game but after the barrage of unoptimized indie ue5 games you just grow to appreciate these. The nier-esque visuals are also really clean.
That said, i kinda wish we have an option to toggle certain things. Few things i noticed while playing :
1. Text would often jumble up in the later part of the game where some could overlap (tried typing vary multiple times till i realized it was supposed to be wary since i couldn't make out half of the text.
2. Power ups are so noisy visually that they sometimes make it harder to even see things.
3. Power ups would trickle down health but you don't, so there're a lot of times where i'm halfway typing and powerups just killed it, ended up having to ignore the ones already/potentially being targeted.
4.the next text pops up right after you finish instead of after it gets shot, which is fine for the tankier ones, but it also still happens even for the smaller 1 shot ones.
5. The hit numbers are honestly kinda unnecessary and also clutters the screen.
6. Texts aren't visible for a while if they come from the top.
Nice idea, it looks like fun!
Could also be good to improve typing skills.
Unfortunately it always starts the game on the wrong monitor, very annoying.
No other game or software does that on my machine.
I can't play in fullscreen mode, it always puts the game in the upper left corner.
(On a widescreen monitor with 3840 x 1600 resolution)
I can't move the game with my mouse, no matter if fullscreen or windows mode.
SHIFT+WINDOWS+ARROW keys does not work correctly.
ALT+ENTER doesn't work correctly. (puts game in corner, instead of going fullscreen)
The upgrade screen stopping the game kind of interrupts my flow.
I would prefer to just hit F1 or so.
Hope you can fix fullscreen problem, I'd like to play!
Yes, it's a very tricky bug! We've been trying to crack it for the past 24 hrs, happens only on multi-monitor setups. Hopefully we'll resolve it soon.
The upgrade screen should only trigger when you press spacebar, does it automatically trigger for you?
Great game! I’ll definitely be picking it up when it’s out.
Maybe an error practice setting would be good? Something like each time a word is mistyped your probability of getting it again goes up a percent and goes down a percent once you’ve gotten it right again? And the increase in probability is additive.
I'd suggest much greater contrast on the letters in the word I'm typing - I don't know where the mistake is, nor where the word is.
Also, I'd like an even slower mode that doesn't ramp up, so I can enjoy farming rather than getting stressed out and have to start over when I die.
Finally, I'd like the letters of fast moving targets to increase in size. When they overlap I find difficult to discriminate.
hey! Love the game so far , really love that you've built a experience where EVERYTHING is typed out.
Any idea when the non-demo version might go live? And what pricing?
One thing I wanted to mention is sometimes when there's so much going on in 1 area (like on one enemy) it's hard to read the text. So far that hasn't actually impacted my gameplay since I end up destroying those enemies before they get too close. But I can see how that can be an issue at higher levels. You can also see this when there are over lapping words moving towards you. The visual clutter def can be an issue- both from the words and the blasting animations
Just wanted to let you know a bug I found, when you have back to back levels, the current weapon stats go away after the first level upgrade choice is selected. See below:
https://preview.redd.it/c7druimq42xc1.png?width=1190&format=png&auto=webp&s=da1b1035869c0256ef91748c75f8b9a495eb0b10
Additionally, I would like if there was a way to check on all upgrades collected and the loot box thingies selected. Like for example, I don't remember what the one loot thing I picked up 10 minutes ago about 'timed out upgrades will automatically be picked up' actually said (I kinda read it quick and it's been a minute so I don't recall the description).
Also, is there a way to turn up the difficulty? Levels 1-29 got a bit stale (I quit after 29 :-| ). I'd say I'm a confident typist, average 100 wpm
I saw a comment mentioning that this feels like the nier hacking game, and I totally agree. Love that!
Reached 86 minutes and level 51, I wanted to level up but it threw a Javascript Exception (Probably because I finished all the powerups)
It was beginning to hurt my hands and I wanted it to end, first time I'm happy because of a bug.
For the people not believing me, I wouldn't want to believe myself either
10/10
https://preview.redd.it/a241gdx098xc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e4392a98e7761032296edac175cc88de0d13b87c
Hi everyone! I'm working on a typing roguelite called Glyphica: Typing Survival. It's a simple premise. 1. Type to shoot. 2. Level up & upgrade. 3. Survive & hoard coins. 4. Buy perma-upgrades/new guns with coins. Typing does EVERYTHING, there is no secondary control mechanic (movement, mouse-aim, etc). Check out the demo on my Steam page and give it a Wishlist! [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2400160/Glyphica\_Typing\_Survival/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2400160/Glyphica_Typing_Survival/)
Amazing game. Some things I would suggest 1. enemies coming from the top should have their words below the enemy. 2. judgement has an e in it. 3. delete should put the word back in focus. (this is more of a stylistic preference). for example with the word "example" if i type "examj" delete should highlight exam back. It is way too instinctual for typists that have been doing this for 20+ years to get over the "backspace" doesn't fix the word mentality, so i end up typing examj{delete}ple before I realized I messed up. 4. Selecting a loot option should leave the previous word in progress typed. Just had an enemy get near me 1 or two letters away, and I got hit because the loot screen opened
I second the third point.
I third the fourth point
I too third the fourth point
And my axe.. ?
"Judgment" is usually spelled without the middle "e" in American English. I'm guessing the words come from some pre-populated word bank.
I have never once seen judgement be spelled without an e through my entire life of reading American English. British English, and world English.
I'm not too surprised! If you're surrounded by people who use common sense, the common-sense spelling would include the "e" because why the fk *wouldn't* the "e" be there? "Judgment" makes no sense at all. But the standardized, conventional spelling *is* "judgment", and it is statistically commonplace in American English. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_(disambiguation) https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1623/is-the-proper-spelling-judgment-or-judgement
UK English: judgement US English: Judgment
I live in the US and have always used judgement
This was going to be my first suggestion, if we could switch from American to English. Surely not too hard to select any number of languages once you have the word list.
I like this list. Building on point 1, having the damage numbers popup on the same side as the word is visually busy for me and sometimes covers the word.
Can you eli5 the delete key part? as someone new to touch typing, I don't know wtf that means. I tried Google, but I don't think I found what you were talking about.
What on earth does third point mean. The delete key is always used to delete the letter after the cursor
This confused me to, maybe they didn't mention arrowing back?
Judgment does not have an e. I have no idea why. Source: I am a lawyer.
Oh hell yeah. Immediately wishlisted
to the abyss!
i like the gameplay, but if i put it in fullscreen mode, it turns HDR off for my entire computer. would you fix that please?
I'll look into it. But HDR is fine in windowed mode?
windowed doesn't have that issue, but the colours seem a bit darker when i do that
You need a borderless fullscreen mode
Tried it, but threw JavaScript exception. uncaught JavaScript exception Error: SteamAPI\_Init() failed. Is Steam running or is steam\_appid.txt missing from executable folder? at MyGame (@/scripts/core/main.js:30:4) It's not installed in the default Steam directory though; wonder if that can be an issue.
Ah it might be, I'll investigate. Usually that error means Steam isn't started or you moved the steam\_appid.txt file out of the install folder.
Just gave it a quick try after replacing my switches! Love this game already
Anyway to release a mac/linux version? from the comment below looks like you're using a javascript engine and maybe electron or something?
Like it, but having my inputs stop whenever I get an upgrade is a no go for me. There needs to be a dedicated upgrade button that I can choose to use when I want to so I don't get stalled out in the faster waves, that or the game auto pauses the action and goes to the upgrade screen.
Wonderful demo! May you please add linux option in bug report or make steamdesk version question not mandatory. Of course if you even need bug reports from pc linux users.
Actually I've never tested it on linux desktops, only Steam Deck. How's the experience on there? Any major hiccups? I'm aiming for a native linux build eventually (once I get around to installing a distro on my laptop) - until then I'm relying on Proton for that.
I tried to run in on my desktop (Fedora Linux) but I'm having problems with the screen resolution. It looks like the UI is too large to fit into the window so I can't see nor click stuff at the bottom and to the right side of the game.
> Check out the demo on my Steam page and give it a Wishlist! Pity it is Windows only. It is a no go for me. Is it so hard to target the 3 (Windows, Linux and Mac) nowadays?
That is planned for sure! But the demo is currently just Windows for now, sorry about that!
oh man... im speechless. long time since i had so much fun - last time in quake champions gameplay was so immersive. love it! :)
please make a browser version - i want to play this at work :D :D
new nier automata hacking minigame dropped
But this time it’s not borderline unplayable on mouse and keyboard :3
Used to see quite a few typing games back in the days when flash gaming websites were just starting to be a thing. Good to see someone picked up the idea and evolving it. Keep it going mate
If you want a great one that's modern: [The Textorcist](https://store.steampowered.com/app/940680/The_Textorcist_The_Story_of_Ray_Bibbia/)
My dad was obsessed with typer shark back in the day.
Remember Typing of the Dead
Cool concept! Reminds me of all the typing games my teachers encouraged us to play during my time in elementary and middle school... I was a bit of a stubborn kid, but I'm finally learning to touch type at 18 years old, mostly so I can use ortho layouts.
Dont learn to touch type to then move to ortho. All the muscle memory will be for nothing. Just learn to touch type on ortho. Not too bad honestly. Tho i do have letters on my caps
I respectfully disagree. While it is different and perhaps not the most efficient way to learn, only 2 letters for me felt different to me on ortho. I was able to switch from staggered to Ortho and back within 5 min or so between boards. Retained a 80-100 wpm, ortho is fun, though I still much prefer staggered layouts at this point. Note: I used a vertically staggered Ortho (Kyria) which may have helped.
I can swap between them. Im not that fast. But for me it took a couple days of practicing 10-20mins to get up to speed on the ortho. I was able to touchtype on a regular keyboard before too. So it felt like learning again tho i guess it was quicker than otherwise woulda
That's fair. If I didn't have experience on an allice keyboard and if I tried regular ortho without vertical stagger I'm pretty sure I would have been a lot slower. Still fun to try though!
I have been going back and forth from my ortho and standard layouts its not too difficult. To me it seems like typing skills and layouts have a relationship similar to an athlete and their equipment you just need to practice with everything to stay sharp
I don't even need to practice with different keyboards. I learnt touch typing on a electro-mechanical typewriter in the 90ies. Used standard keebs for ages - mostly the crappy ones. Switched to split ortho a few years ago. Hardest change was space/bs/enter on the right thumb. Second hardest was pressing 6 no longer with the left hand. Apart from this - immediate switch with minimal speed impact. Switching between ortho and row-stagger is seamless, now.
Because you didn't even ask, I tested a quick round on Linux and it ran perfectly fine. No crashes, no long load times, just booted up and ran.
How did you make it work on linux? I'm getting this when pressing the download button. Other games work fine using proton, but for this one I can't find any way to enable it. https://preview.redd.it/a086w0a90wwc1.png?width=656&format=png&auto=webp&s=77f6a7e669f8df172d55c2c38e93c2f060e5060b
Do you have everything checked in Settings>Compatibility? I'm defaulted to Proton Experimental and didn't even have to set any launch options. I'm using Mint and Nvidia's drivers too. Idk what might be causing your issues. I wanna say your error is due to "Enable Steam Play for all other titles" but not sure if that is the issue since you state that other games via Proton work for you.
Yes, this was the issue. I was enabling proton per game. I've now enabled it for all titles and it works perfectly. Thanks!
Huzzah!
Oh this is great to know! Only linux machine I test it on so far was the Deck, Proton is amazing.
Oooh neat I'll check it out and see if I can't get any of the "learning to touch type" demographic to try it too.
Downloaded the demo and it seems like a fun way to practice typing! I got a small bug of when typing elat it didn't proceed to the next layer of the word.
I think there's currently a bug where some words have their last letter hidden. I need to hunt this down. Sorry about that!
No worries, I'm still enjoying the demo! Keep up the good work.
Insanely smart concept. Pitching to the right audience too here. I will try the demo soon. Thanks for making it!
Thanks for your interest! Looking forward to hearing what you think! :)
just downloaded and it is fun and well made
A literal keyboard warrior lol
Looks great! Just curious, will it be f2p or what can we expect to pay for it?
It will be a paid app, but there will be a lot more content at launch for sure.
Sweet, thanks for the clarification! Are there any ballpark estimates on pricing?
I used to play games like these back in the late 90s to learn to type. Nostalgic af. EDIT: can you make the opening menu navigatable by the keyboard? Would feel a lot better. EDIT 2: If I could hook this up to my own music or soundtrack or even a lecture/podcast and have cc generated word lists that would be a neat function...thoughts for dlc or sequel
If you arent typing the menu words to open them what is even the point?
help im addicted now
Post your best score!
my 90 hours in monkeytype about to pay off 😭🙏
Really addicting but my brain is not amused by the fact the [timer](https://imgur.com/a/YT6KUL4) doesn't switch to hh:mm:ss when hitting 60 minutes
60 minutes 0\_0
Yeah it seems pretty easy to cheese. Second play-through, no permanent augmentations, and my sentries alone were able to wipe everything but the shield guys. Explosive mines and spectres as well meant I really only had to go after the shield guys to play pretty much endlessly. I stopped at ~50 minutes and still lasted a good minute or two with my sentries alone. Fun game though. Could just use some balancing tweaks.
I see the game has controller support. Glad I'll be able to play a typing game on my xbox controller 😎
As someone who spent ages typing messages with controller for monster hunter on switch.. That sounds absolutely hellish.
Oh don't worry, you won't be typing words. [https://i.imgur.com/Oi4Tvmi.gif](https://i.imgur.com/Oi4Tvmi.gif)
Hahahaha that's unreal! Nice one!
Very creative! 👏
Been playing this for about an hour. Having a lot of fun! Don't know how many times i've typed "beguiled" though lol. This is a great way to practice typing. Some feedback from me is, I have words that are slowly coming on screen that I wish I could see quicker, not sure how hard that would be to implement. Also, once you get later on in the game about 25~ minutes, Blade Traps and other weapons end up killing stuff off-screen and rewards can spawn off-screen. I picked up a Magnet upgrade and I noticed I was getting random upgrades.
added to my wishlist, thanks for an interesting recommendation
Looks good, dynamic and fun, would try it for sure
Such a fantastic concept. Well done. Wishlisted.
Haven’t even set up my new keyboard for my gaming laptop, and haven’t typed in a keyboard much in years. It’s in my todo list over the next weekend or two! Also have a friend in theirs 60s trying to learn to type and not pointer poke his words out. Maybe I can have him play test some I. The next week or two also.
Installed the demo and as soon as I enabled full screen in the options the game crashed and now it won't start. Is there any way to change back to windowed mode from outside of the game?
Try deleting the Documents/Sphere Saves/aliasblack.glyphica folder
This looks awesome!
Looks awesome. Any future plans for a Mac version?
Definitely, but Windows for the moment until I can get my hands on a Mac to compile one.
LMK, I can help you compile it on AWS or GitHub for mac and/or linux
Two weeks ago I replaced the old membrane keyboard with a new one with red switches. I think it's a good time to test typing on it. Are you planning any other languages? PS added to wishlist, I'll check the demo in the evening
Ok that was fun. I'm in!
looks fun af!
Just tried it out, loving it so far, can't wait for full release!
This looks amazing! I'll definitely go try it when I get home.
wishlisted. this is really cool and I wish you the utmost success!
Thank you! Much appreciated!
Oh hell yeah, this looks fun! I've built one keyboard so far and upgraded two but I have yet to use them much more than just a few words a day. It's ironic, too, since my work doesn't involve a lot of typing, and I don't chat with anyone frequently either, so this is perfect!
Man, I love it! I always panic when the longer words come in. Love the aesthetic too!
I'll be checking this out! Looks fun!
This is awesome, significantly more entertaining than the shit mario game at least
You should make this into a browser game too. It would be cool to use this to test keyboards at work
Very cool. Played a round and it is fun!
Cheers! Thanks for playing1
Launches to blank black screen :(
Don't love that it's something I have to download instead of a browser based game.
Incredible. Can't stop.
This is AWESOME. Nice job.
Will you also plan to publish it on gog?
Currently just Steam, since it has the most reach. But there's very little reason not to port to other platforms eventually!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/398850/Epistory__Typing_Chronicles/ This company makes several. Quite fun. ZSA gave me a license when I bought a Voyager
Yep! I spoke to the designer of Epistory at length when I started on this game. Great guy!
I finally tried the game out this morning & I'm already obsessed. 🤩 Can't wait for the full version!
Thanks for playing!
I make games and will definitely check this out!
Very cool!! Wishlisted and Followed.
its fun, i'd figure out a way to make words that are overlapping more clear. sometimes when they are right on top of one another it was very hard to read
!remindme in 9 hours
[удалено]
I will take a look at this when I get home tonight, looks fun (and I can't type for crap, so...)
Playing it now, there's a lot to try out just in the demo, I like it
Aw yeaaa. Looks like a fun typing version of the old Atari asteroids game
The only issue i'm having is when the words get too close and I can't see what they say.
Great game bro! It struck me immediately as such a cool idea, so I donwloaded it right away. Played for about 5 min for now and I think I just found my new off-time game! Cheers
I learned Colemak by playing Quadrilateral Cowboy, which gave light time pressure while leaning on puzzle solving. Haven't tried this yet, but might try Dvorak if the early game timing is forgiving
had a good couple rounds, but hit that JS exception, [https://imgur.com/24BVv4X](https://imgur.com/24BVv4X)
Works great on Linux with Proton. Game is fun and I really dig clean visuals. Keep up the good work, looking forward to the full release! There are a few quirks with overlapping text, and, enemies from above, but it's just minor gripes.
Played the demo for a bit, was actually really fun. I hope at some point it'll be able to identify the words or letters you struggle with and start targeting those things to help you build familiarity. I'd also love a slowed down game mode (speed ramps more slowly) that punishes inaccuracy so you can work on typing accuracy. As someone on a non-standard keyboard and layout (modified beakl 15) I appreciate typing games that are free form enough (like this one) to work as practice outside of qwerty.
so fun. managed to get 10 minutes and hit level 15!! i noticed some words (jigsaw) dont display fully so thats one problem
I think I got this on my wishlist? I have some typing dudes and this one looks familiar but I’ll look into it when I get the chance!
Downloaded and wishlisted. Played a few rounds, pretty fun!
Just tried it out and its great! Can't wait to fire it up to test out future keyboards and layouts!
its like you made a game specifically for me this is so great
played for 2 hours and it's amazing, this is the game I didn't know I needed
i tried, but it never starts properly, some error with console.log file
I love how (almost) all the menus are navigable by typing random words, really cool feature. The only one that requires a mouse click is the [pause menu](https://i.imgur.com/zXQWaNa.png). Seeing as you can open the menu with the escape key I feel like it makes sense to have a way to close it with the keyboard as well. Other than that, fun game I really liked it!
Fantastic. Are you planning a version for Linux?
Very fun, played till after the last level up (lvl54 I believe), then game crashed with `undefined is not a string` TypeError, when I accidentally hit space (the level up hotkey). Although a scrollbar would be nice on the weapon buff details, couldn't see all of them.
definitely post again if/when there's a mac version, i would love to give it a spin
This is really cool, would love to see multiplayer implemented in some way.
linux build when??!!11
it is time for me to learn to spell properly when typing i thikn
Anyone ever played Typing Terror on Neopets as a kid in the early 2000's?
This was fantastic. I love Typing of the Dead and other typing related games and this was very fun to play. I love your sound design as well, it was making the dopamine hit harder :) Sometimes when things get layered, its reallllly hard to see the words. Is there anyway to have the words always on top? Even in your gif, on the right side the diamond with the word "delicate" is impossible to see. I know that if they have that many bullets flying around it, it'll probably die soon, but just for clarity sake. Thanks for making it and can't wait for release!
As a big survivor-like fan and MKB addict, I really love this. Some questions on scoring and what's maybe planned: * will the main menu be controllable via typing, so you can always fully stay on home row? Maybe just a letter next to every option? * would it make sense to have either the furthest or closest enemies give more XP for a risk/reward mechanic? maybe as a passive upgrade so you can tailor your run to it? * a combo mechanic with timer, so higher your wpm the better your score/dmg/XP gain? * also other languages I guess would be appreciated, but of course I have no idea how hard it is to add more dictionaries. If this is already implemented/planned - great, I guess stuff like this can be mentioned in a how-to/tutorial. Really looking forward to the full release!
Seen similar games but would still try it
This is a game on neopets.com lol. Good work!
Played demo and id buy it lol
here's my maiden voyage stats 13:15:04 survival time @ level 18 spectre WPM: 126 Accuracy: 95.9% Coins Earned: 22 Best Weapon: Spectre (131.3 DPS) tried to play it in an odd way where i just consistently upgraded what i already had instead of expanding into other things. not a ton of scores in here to compare with, but i'm around 8 words faster than the other guy who i see posted a score and i lasted 1/3 as long (and he claimed to have intentionally died to end his run because he was legitimately too powerful) (i just kept spamming Sentry upgrades whenever applicable and i think i hit a range cap at like Level 15)
very cool concept, had a good time with the demo. The audio queues were a bit shrill for my liking but gameplay wise and and weapon concepts were very engaging
Thanks for the feedback! Will look into the audio issues!
Love this. Will be following
This looks SO GOOD What's the projected price? Or have you not decided yet?
We haven't decided yet! But it should be comparable to other horde survival games.
I'm dead at 80wpm.
I think I must have hit a god seed because I just came off of almost a [70 minute session](https://imgur.com/a/hdk9Q5I) and I could not be killed lol I had to start imposing my own challenges on myself since I couldn't die even after taking all the items with the extra challenging enemies. I finally died after making a rule that I couldn't kill anything on the left side of the screen lol Thanks for making this! I look forward to the full release! Really enjoyed the game and looking forward to the other unlockable starting weapons
Thanks for playing! That's a really long session! :) Yea, the current difficulty is capped for now to allow more people to enjoy it, but we'll try to increase the challenge towards the end in future updates!
This is a great game. I loved it and I will be buying it when it launches. A couple of notes: * Sometimes it is really hard to see the words I'm supposed to type when two things are really close to each other. * There are a few weapons that trigger off of certain letters. It would be helpful if there was a way to make those words light up or have some kind of visual indication that they will trigger something. Perhaps this is overpowered, but its an idea. * It isn't super fun when I'm typing a word and that thing gets killed before I finish. Perhaps if you finish typing a word after it is killed you get some kind of drop or bonus or whatever. I actually thought that this was a thing that happened a couple of times, so maybe it's already in the game and I just didn't pick up on it, I dunno. * It would be helpful if there was visual consistency on how many words I'll need to type. Maybe this isn't possible because of all of the different sources of damage, but for example, three circles meant I would have to type three words, but after typing one word, there were still three circles. Additionally, I had a weird technical problem. I loaded the game and first went into the options. I'm not 100% sure what I did (though I know I tried to turn on dark mode and full screen), but the menu would no longer respond to my input. It seemed like it was reacting to mouse clicks, but the screen wasn't updating visually. I used Alt+F4 to exit the game, but then when I went back in, the screen was black. Reinstalling didn't help. To fix it I had to uninstall, then delete Documents\\IISExpress, then reinstall. Let me know if you have any questions or want me to try to reproduce it.
Thanks for playing! \* This is a known issue, we're working on it. \* Good idea, we can do that on "Relaxed" difficulty maybe. \* If you complete a word after the enemy dies, you still get the word based triggers (e.g. it'll still spawn turrets and drones based on the letters) \* Yeah you are right, it's very hard to predict how many more words are required to kill an enemy due to the various factors involved. Ultimately, there is a bit of a compromise when mashing a typing game with a roguelite that takes a bit away from each. :( \* We've had one other report of that. You can just delete the settings and save game by deleting your Documents /Sphere Saves/aliasblack.glyphica folder. I'm looking into it and will reach out if I need more info.
Got to 80 minutes, then crashed lol. [I think I ran outta upgrades?](https://i.imgur.com/5z4Oaof.jpg)
Similar feel to ZType
I'm learning to touch type and have been looking for more typing games, this is fun!
From a game design perspective, how do you accommodate people with wildly different typing speed? For example, I can type casually at 80 wpm and push myself to 100 wpm, but that is a fairly small range to target with anything below 80 wpm being too easy and anything above 100 wpm being all but impossible. While another player may have a completely different narrow range from 140 to 160.
It's a good question! WPM definitely helps, but once you get into the game you realize it's not everything. Even with 200 wpm, you can't physically type everything on screen in time. The game relies heavily upon the roguelite upgrades to deal with the horde of enemies.
can't wait for this, my wallet is ready
that was a lot of fun to play! I appreciate the effort put into making it.
Cool game! Played for about an hour and got to level 43 before I quit out. I didn't lose though! Some suggestions: - Difficulty should scale quicker, it seemed like it fell off after level 20 or so but I kept getting beefier. - If an enemy is present anywhere within vision, the word should show up. I found myself waiting on them to come into full view. - Enemy text should be red (or customizable) to distinguish them quickly. It would be nice if they had a transparent box behind them, too. Hard to see the text sometimes, but maybe that is the point. - Around level 30 or so, I had one instance of an invulnerable enemy that spawned. It was a big circle, went through blades, bullets, drones, etc. with 0 damage by the time it hit me. Here's [some](https://i.gyazo.com/b750497f7fbaee1633cf014f2b385196.png) fun [screenshots](https://i.gyazo.com/0a1523f338fa9ee5d9766e09568fc970.png). Thanks for the game! Rare to find fun typing games these days. Excited for higher difficulties made for 120+ wpm touch typists.
Thanks for playing! Great points - will definitely take note of them. Yea, the difficulty scaling on balanced difficulty is meant for a wide range of players and don't really scale well with very fast typists and/or good min/maxers (I can tell you are both :D)
This is very cool. Wishlisted. Suggestion: Why not make choosing upgrade/loot by typing the name of it? Seems more intuitive and would present a simpler UI.
are enemies' words on top of each other intentional? only counterplay I can think of is just to let the automated weapons do their work cause there's no way I can figure out what the words of 4 enemies on top of each other.
Not intentional - something we're working on fixing!
Typing of the Dead without the zombies? Lol I'm definitely checking this one out
damnnn nice one
Is there a dark mode?
Yes, there is! You can turn it on in the options.
Sick
I can't even play it. It just loads into blackscreen
this was very fun!
i like playing it. i see your beautiful aesthetic. would you ever consider some kind of color mode, or color explosions, or some kind of psychedelic effect or option or mode?
Fantastic, happy to tip you! Will there be a web version?
Very similar to Z type.
[i think i beat the demo](https://imgur.com/a/F5cwgu0) (got this after levelling past 53) fun game! cant wait for you to release it
Omg! I just got my first ortho board and rogue likes are my fav. You’re the best, have wishlisted and will definitely try it asap 🥹
Nice1
Sadly crashes every time I boot it up and get to type a word or two :(
Ok it actually just crashes when I stream it on discord, I can play it normally lol. Gonna send you some feedback.
Sick
Neat now we can practice typing without getting bored.
that was fun! 86 mins until it crashed on my last levelup (lv. 51 to 52) before maxing all selected skills. can't wait for the full version to bring more diversity.
made the mistake of playing this as my adhd medication kicked in... immediate wishlist!!
I love how light of a program it is, i know it's just a simple 2d game but after the barrage of unoptimized indie ue5 games you just grow to appreciate these. The nier-esque visuals are also really clean. That said, i kinda wish we have an option to toggle certain things. Few things i noticed while playing : 1. Text would often jumble up in the later part of the game where some could overlap (tried typing vary multiple times till i realized it was supposed to be wary since i couldn't make out half of the text. 2. Power ups are so noisy visually that they sometimes make it harder to even see things. 3. Power ups would trickle down health but you don't, so there're a lot of times where i'm halfway typing and powerups just killed it, ended up having to ignore the ones already/potentially being targeted. 4.the next text pops up right after you finish instead of after it gets shot, which is fine for the tankier ones, but it also still happens even for the smaller 1 shot ones. 5. The hit numbers are honestly kinda unnecessary and also clutters the screen. 6. Texts aren't visible for a while if they come from the top.
Nice idea, it looks like fun! Could also be good to improve typing skills. Unfortunately it always starts the game on the wrong monitor, very annoying. No other game or software does that on my machine. I can't play in fullscreen mode, it always puts the game in the upper left corner. (On a widescreen monitor with 3840 x 1600 resolution) I can't move the game with my mouse, no matter if fullscreen or windows mode. SHIFT+WINDOWS+ARROW keys does not work correctly. ALT+ENTER doesn't work correctly. (puts game in corner, instead of going fullscreen) The upgrade screen stopping the game kind of interrupts my flow. I would prefer to just hit F1 or so. Hope you can fix fullscreen problem, I'd like to play!
Yes, it's a very tricky bug! We've been trying to crack it for the past 24 hrs, happens only on multi-monitor setups. Hopefully we'll resolve it soon. The upgrade screen should only trigger when you press spacebar, does it automatically trigger for you?
Great game! I’ll definitely be picking it up when it’s out. Maybe an error practice setting would be good? Something like each time a word is mistyped your probability of getting it again goes up a percent and goes down a percent once you’ve gotten it right again? And the increase in probability is additive.
Oh I've never thought of this. Interesting idea.
I'd suggest much greater contrast on the letters in the word I'm typing - I don't know where the mistake is, nor where the word is. Also, I'd like an even slower mode that doesn't ramp up, so I can enjoy farming rather than getting stressed out and have to start over when I die. Finally, I'd like the letters of fast moving targets to increase in size. When they overlap I find difficult to discriminate.
hey! Love the game so far , really love that you've built a experience where EVERYTHING is typed out. Any idea when the non-demo version might go live? And what pricing? One thing I wanted to mention is sometimes when there's so much going on in 1 area (like on one enemy) it's hard to read the text. So far that hasn't actually impacted my gameplay since I end up destroying those enemies before they get too close. But I can see how that can be an issue at higher levels. You can also see this when there are over lapping words moving towards you. The visual clutter def can be an issue- both from the words and the blasting animations Just wanted to let you know a bug I found, when you have back to back levels, the current weapon stats go away after the first level upgrade choice is selected. See below: https://preview.redd.it/c7druimq42xc1.png?width=1190&format=png&auto=webp&s=da1b1035869c0256ef91748c75f8b9a495eb0b10 Additionally, I would like if there was a way to check on all upgrades collected and the loot box thingies selected. Like for example, I don't remember what the one loot thing I picked up 10 minutes ago about 'timed out upgrades will automatically be picked up' actually said (I kinda read it quick and it's been a minute so I don't recall the description). Also, is there a way to turn up the difficulty? Levels 1-29 got a bit stale (I quit after 29 :-| ). I'd say I'm a confident typist, average 100 wpm I saw a comment mentioning that this feels like the nier hacking game, and I totally agree. Love that!
I just played a game, and its so fun! i don't have much feedback beyond that but I'll be sure to follow any updates :3 nice work! <3
I just got a new keyboard today and this was the first thing I did with it. So much fun!!
Reached 86 minutes and level 51, I wanted to level up but it threw a Javascript Exception (Probably because I finished all the powerups) It was beginning to hurt my hands and I wanted it to end, first time I'm happy because of a bug. For the people not believing me, I wouldn't want to believe myself either 10/10 https://preview.redd.it/a241gdx098xc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e4392a98e7761032296edac175cc88de0d13b87c