Typing games have a reputation for being made for children, probably because millennials grew up playing them as a way to teach them how to use keyboards for the first time. I don’t think they’re really needed anymore, since children are growing up using smartphones and keyboards from infancy, but I have fond memories of playing typing games as a child on my family desktop.
Because typing is second nature to most of us now, we’ve seen aresurgencein indie typing games using the mechanic in fresh new ways. No longer are they just educational entertainment – typing is used to great effect in games such as The Textorcist, Tyfortress: Tactical Typing, Epistory - Typing Chronicles, and more. Touch Type Tale follows in this spirit with a real-time strategy game, using typing as a trigger for collecting resources, directing troops, and more.
Related:Make More Typing Games And Make Them Immediately
I played Touch Type Tale’s early access open beta, and was immediately sold. You play as Paul, a child who is basically a wizard intern. Paul finds a magical typewriter among the wizard’s belongings while doing his other intern duties (namely, sorting a collection of toenails) and finds that he has extremely fast fingers. Using the typewriter, Paul begins to collect resources, build farms, train troops, and send them out to fight bandits invading his village. It’s when the king of Paul’s homeland, Minsteria, dies, that things start to get interesting.
I don’t typically enjoy battle strategy games, but I do love a resource management title, and Touch Type Tale had enough of that to keep me hooked. Add to that some absolutely beautiful watercolour-style art, and I was sold. Maybe this is because I don’t play strategy games much, but I was surprised at how smart the enemies were. They moved away and around me, strategically cutting me off at times, so there were moments when I realised I needed to change my tactics and I’d restart the level. I even played levels over again so I could beat optional challenges, with no frustration because the core gameplay loop is so compelling and fun to play.
I was also impressed at how the levels seemed to evolve and introduce new mechanics as the story went on, reflecting the plot. Though the build I played didn’t have much of the campaign included, it constantly introduced fresh challenges to me in a way that inducted me into the controls without friction. It’s a shame that there wasn’t more of the campaign, but I say that because I’m itching to keep playing – my introduction to the first major character in the story (apart from Paul) and his consequent actions had meimmediatelypraying on his downfall and eager to see the rest of the story, which I think was the point.
I didn’t get the chance to play on multiplayer mode, but there is an online option where you may play against other players in skirmish battles with a ranking system. You can even play in multiple languages apparently, with asynchronous language options. I probably won’t do all that, but I’ll still be watching for the full release of Touch Type Tale and hoping it’s all I wished for. I might even go back and play it on a higher difficulty level while I’m waiting.
