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Typing at Depth
Typing at Depth
By ukulelefury and AldenWitt
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 288 | 3.73 | 39 | |
| Fun | 397 | 3.43 | 40 | |
| Innovation | 21 | 4.30 | 40 | |
| Theme | 245 | 3.98 | 40 | |
| Audio | 344 | 3.43 | 40 | |
| Humor | 349 | 3.03 | 35 | |
| Mood | 394 | 3.63 | 39 | |
Comments
A very unique concept executed very well with some minor difficulty issues. Even being a relatively fast typer, I had trouble keeping up with the pace of downwards movement. Despite that, I found myself pushing to see if I could see all there was in the game as the idea was very novel to me.
Some notes I made during gameplay: - The initial screen being a small white box in the top left made me think it was broken in my browser. Some indicator the user needs to type (fading in gray text after a bit) would likely be a good idea. - This seems to be due to the size of the window on itch.io? Zooming in by 175% fixed it. - Difficulty is very, very high with the default movement speed. - Similarly, reading Clippy messages while moving at this speed is also difficult. - Collision for words doesn't seem to work sometimes (for long words only?). - Word length is sometimes overly long for not being able to queue them up. - Separating typing and movement into different modes or buttons might be a good choice.
Overall, a very good concept which fits the theme very well. I think this idea has great potential. Good luck in your future endeavors!
pavlov36
2025-04-09 06:25
Nice to play, very interesting theme implementation!
Like the atmosphere and game idea)
Very cool concept! Love the way the levels look and feel :)
bashem
2025-04-11 20:18
Hello there! Very interesting and unique concept. I wish it was a bit easier at the beginning, but overall nice entry :D
Loved the concept, very unique, including moving with space and backspace (which did take me multiple attempts to realize since it was hard to focus on the tutorial while also being thrown into the action). I really liked that everything was made out of text, and clippy was honestly great. Good work!
drsmey
2025-04-11 21:00
This is an insanely cool concept and fits the theme perfectly. Incredibly well done.
Such a cool idea you guys had. I like typing games, and your game hits just the right spots. Although in the first run I didn't understand, that I could move the cursor with space and backspace, even though this makes perfect sense and as soon as I figured it out I was like 'well, of course this is how it's supposed to work'. Very cool! Congrats on a great execution of the theme and creating something special.
xlambein
2025-04-11 21:03
I like the concept, it's very original :] Unfortunately, I feel like it's not very well balanced. Typing the words takes way too much time, even though I'm a comfortable touch-typer. Beyond 300m I never have the time to type real words, I just alternate between keymashing to move right and enter to go back all the way to the left.
My favourite part is the general mood and design of the game. I think you absolutely nailed that :]
Best score was 1368m.
Amazing theme use and concept! It's probably a bit too hard though if you're not a great typer. As it is, I did better if I just focused on dodging and ignored typing. Maybe starting slower and speeding up as you go deeper would help ease you into it more. Still really awesome idea that would be cool to see tweaked and expanded.
Wow this is a great entry! I struggled a lot figuring out what to do at first--I was hitting enter after each word when I typed them on screen and getting reset to the left. I didn't realize I needed to move over to them (or how to move my indicator at first) to cache them for later. Started doing much better after that, knowing I could instantly dash to the far left.
Still, the game moves far too fast for even a proficient typist, especially as it speeds up. You hardly have time to type words as you see them, much less dodge, consider your ever-growing arsenal, and respond to sealife threats. I hope you release a post-jam version with a much slower scroll speed!
I love typing games and I can tell that this one has an incredibly creative approach to the genre. Sadly, I wasn't really able to figure out how to play.. I tried for a while, just wasn't sure what was going on. Tutorials can be really tricky in game jams, but I think when you have an idea as unique as this one, they are essentially required if you want everybody to be able to play it.
binroot
2025-04-12 00:58
This is so brilliant that it's mind blowing! I love that even though there are only 3-5 types of attacks, you have many words that do the same thing, so it appears like there's more variety than there really is. What a cool idea to use ASCII art and type out the marine animals in text! SO COOL!
yana666
2025-04-12 01:34
- very beautiful design, special thanks for the clip!!!! - at high speed it is difficult to keep up with the hints
reyansh
2025-04-12 01:40
The game is really good and unique, one main improvement is adding something to tell the user about all the abilities in game(eg rock, projectile, etc), like a tutorial at the start telling the player what each ability does, or at least some of them, and teaching them about using the enter key, overall though good game!
nomus
2025-04-12 02:33
very cool mood with such an interesting concept ! Unfortunatly I suck at typing but this was super well made, the paperclip creates a cool complicity while launching bombs towards fishes.
I think, it is one of the best games that I have played till now. It has very nice and carefully crafted design. Nice music, nice interpretation of the theme. Game gets hard really fast, but I am ok with this! Good job!
kuboi
2025-04-12 10:49
Such an original take on the theme! Was a bit hard to grasp the controls at first but once I got the hang of it it was really fun! It is a bit hard to type the abilities in time, maybe a little slow motion while typing an ability could help? Really cool idea and fun game!
noagard
2025-04-12 12:02
Really creative and fun concept! Loved the typing mechanics and the vibe. It gets hard fast, but still super cool and unique. Great job!
aurel300
2025-04-12 12:08
Very neat concept! I liked the audio and tried a couple of runs to reach ~900m. I think it could use a bit more balancing to make this really fun. Some notes:
* the game starts quite abruptly and assuming Clippy is there to "tutorialise" was wrong: it always says "type (X) to (what X does)" for the latest word you pick up", but whatever, the game is quick to restart and is meant to be a score attack anyway; * once the speed picks up, auto-repeating spacebar or backspace is quite important for being able to move around quickly (but I assume this may depend on the user's keyboard configuration, no?) and even then it takes a while for it to kick in; * enter is also incredibly useful but somewhat situational, though I'm glad it at least places you on the leftmost *valid* place (at the time you hit it); * the variety of words is cool, but some of these sure are long! I don't think I will ever use "insurmountable" in a reactive fashion, only as a precaution; * your inventory blocks the screen! I guess the game could be shown in a non-square aspect ratio, with a sidebar dedicated to the inventory?
Another typing game proving I need to double down on my typing skills xD One of the best implementations of the theme in it's literal sense.
bob152
2025-04-15 13:17
Super cool and unique idea, and super cohesive implementation - love the ascii art!, had a lot of fun with this one, even though I really suck at it! I think the length of some of the words is a bit too long - gave up with some of them to focus on space/backspacing, and I usually gave up on the attack words and just tried to run away with space/backspace/enter because they took too long to type! Maybe the moral of the story is I need to get better at typing :P
Wow, the graphics concept is so cool. I enjoyed this game, albeit it was a little hard (or maybe I'm just bad). Also great laugh when I saw Clippy, such a classy reference.
vj031206
2025-04-17 16:28
The idea is cool, using keyboard as a core mechanism is a great idea, and the cursor moving using space and backspace is cool. However, the game was a bit choppy for me, and for this time of a game it really breaks the fun, also the gameplay wasn't very apparent at first. I would have liked to be told to enter space to move right and backspace for left, and in general why to type the words etc. But awesome game. Love the simple and unique art as well, but would love to see more complexity.
A nice simple and minimalistic game. I do agree with what @vj031206 said, if the game provides some instructions about how the game works, it would reduce some confusion for first time players.
peachy
2025-04-19 17:47
Such a unique concept! I agree with other commenters on the difficulty, but it actually made me kind of addicted lol. I'd love to see a leaderboard! Also maybe I just need to get faster at typing. Really interesting interpretation of the theme :)