Hello All
We recently have created quite a number of typing games for teaching typing to grade k to grade 8. It's Typingbird.com
We want your help giving us the feedback if these games work well in colemak layout as well.
Any takers?
Hello All
We recently have created quite a number of typing games for teaching typing to grade k to grade 8. It's Typingbird.com
We want your help giving us the feedback if these games work well in colemak layout as well.
Any takers?
This looks nice and fun! And with a focus on kids, I suppose there's no risk of running into The Typing of the Dead.
[ ಠೃಠ]︻╦̵̵̿╤── ヽ( ຈ益ຈ)ノ
Any favorites there, that you can recommend?
I've played some typing games and had great fun with it even as an adult, as seen in my BigBag Gaming section. Most of those can be bought on Steam these days. I've also tried some in the Steam CapslockDay bundle that were far less enjoyable, but most are good. The Typing Chronicles are simply wonderful, and quite child-friendly too – although they do contain musings of a surprisingly mature nature! I love and recommend them.
I gave some games a spin. I see there is a "for adults" category; that's a nice touch! Here goes (with ☑☐☒ for aye/hmm/nay):
☑ JabJab Boxing: Fun, seems to work well and has four difficulty levels which is nice.
☑ Fast Type Racer: This racing game works with EPKL (just not its dead keys which is a minor issue). Nice style, with animals.
☑ Space Typing: Fun game! Says it's for Space Invader fans, but it's actually a lot more like Asteroids.
☑ Alien Typing: This is actually like "TotD light": A typing rail shooter. Similar feel to Space Typing, and fun.
☐ Cube Typing: Like the previous two in style, but just floating cubes. Got stuck on a started word. Had the word 'narow' in its wordlist.
☐ Frogie Typing: Nice look, and a fun game. But trying to retype a wrong letter led to a quick demise; you're supposed to just go on.
☐ Bubble Typing: Underwater beauty. Just type the letters in the bubbles, indefinitely. Gets repetitive, but looks good for starters.
☐ Letter Blast: The same as Bubble Typing, if you prefer falling bombs to aquatic life (you madman, you!).
☐ Save The Captain: Similar to a fast-paced Typer Shark. Small minus for a big, ugly QWERTY board taking up screen space.
☐ Rhino Dash: Simplistic pushing game. The Hard mode seems somewhat too hard, and Easy too easy.
☒ Boat Rush: The game uses scan codes, so even with a different system layout I was still typing in QWERTY. No-go, there.
☒ Nitro Type Pro: The same game as Boat Rush, but with cars. Again, sadly useless for Colemak users without programmable boards.
☒ Quad Racer: Again, the same non-layout friendly game engine, this time with quad bikes.
☒ Type The Alphabet: Another scan-code based no-go. Also seems very simplistic, but that may appeal to some kids.
• The non-☒ games all worked with a Colemak-CAWS installed system layout, which is nice.
• The same games also worked when running EPKL (my remapping program). Even the Repeat key worked.
• Maybe mark alt-layout friendly games, or put a warning on the others? People with programmable boards don't mind, but others do.
• For instance, have a category for alt-layout friendly games?
• One thing I've learnt from playing Epistory, is the value of keyboard control in a typing game. Mousing between rounds is a hassle.
• A full-screen mode (and hotkey) would be very nice!
*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***
Excellent Review!!!
Games like Boat Rush,Nitro Type Pro,Quad Racer will be re-coded to support colemak layout.
We learnt very recently that our game developers were using code that only supports QWERTY :(. This was unexpected.
We are modifying the code to expand the support for Colemak layout as well.
Oh, that'll be great! Yes, I've heard it's a general problem for alt-layouters that coders sometimes take the shortcut of assuming QWERTY and using scan codes instead of virtual key events. It's really cool that you do something about it!
Make sure you don't just support the Colemak layout, as some users have different variants of it like my Colemak-CAWS, and others use entirely different layouts like, say, Graphite. Your other games support any layout, which is the way we want it.
Let me know if you get a fix for the problem, and I'll update my review accordingly. It's on my BigBag pages too now, so some alt-layouters will see it.
Question: In games like Cube/Space/Alien Typing, is there an easy way to cancel the current word? Such as typing Esc. In the Typing of the Dead rail-typing games, this is sometimes a lifesaver. Occasionally in your games, I'd get stuck without realizing which word I had started typing, in which case such a reset option would've felt great.
And, as mentioned, some general GUI shortcuts like arrow keys and Enter/Esc navigation would be great, so one could play games without mousing. Maybe Alt+W to close a game, similar to Ctrl+W closing a browser tab?
*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***