While most gamers rely on just a handful of keys like W, A, S, and D, the vast majority of a keyboard’s more than 100 buttons often go untouched. Traditional PC gaming usually involves one hand on a mouse and the other on a limited set of keyboard controls, leaving many keys out of reach. But what if you could put both hands to work on the keyboard in a gaming context? You absolutely can, and modern typing games are proving it.
Typing games have been around for decades, originally conceived as educational software to help children master the keyboard. Millennials might recall titles like Typer Shark and the iconic Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing from their school computer labs, a time when personal computers weren’t yet household staples. As laptops became ubiquitous and dedicated computer labs faded, so too did the demand for these educational typing programs. However, from those nostalgic roots, typing games have made an unexpected comeback, drawing inspiration from their instructional past while introducing exciting new mechanics to this specialized genre.
Released in 1987 by Software Toolworks, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing stands as the definitive example of a typing game. It wasn’t the very first, but its prominence made Mavis Beacon herself the enduring symbol of the genre. Michael Duffy, one of the game’s developers, shared with GameSpot, “The high concept – the idea that the world’s best typing teacher was at your side, correcting mistakes and offering encouragement – was a big part of the appeal. We incorporated ‘game’ elements, similar to our success with Chessmaster, using graphics and music to make the necessary repetitive practice enjoyable. The innovative on-screen typing hands, which showed correct finger placement, helped players avoid looking at their own hands, and the persona of Mavis herself was a significant draw.”
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing offered several mini-games that elevated it beyond a mere typing tutorial, including Road Race, Space Junk, and Ragtime. While fundamentally similar—all involved typing scrolling prompts—each game applied different effects. Faster typing accelerated text in Road Race; accuracy improved shooting in Space Junk; and Ragtime demanded typing in sync with a metronome. These subtle adjustments to how typing influenced gameplay made these experiences genuinely satisfying, and that crucial responsiveness remains a hallmark of excellent typing games today.
Z-Type, a classic type-to-shoot game created by Dominic Szablewski in just one week, thrives on its instant feedback. This arcade-style space shooter tasks players with destroying enemy spaceships before they can hit you. As rounds progress, enemies become more numerous and faster. The typing mechanic is ingenious: each enemy ship displays a word, and some even feature individual letters. Striking the first letter of a word causes your spaceship to fire. So, rapid and accurate typing, for example, of a word like “condescending,” leads to a cascade of explosions.
Szablewski explained, “Typing/shooting and seeing lots of explosions is just cool. The timing, sound effects, and graphics have to be just right to make it feel good. I spent a lot of time fiddling with these things until I had something that I liked. It’s very hard to put into words, but once you have a good game loop, it just clicks.” He added, “I love games that are ‘easy to learn, hard to master.’ Once you get better at these games, you can reach this almost zen-like state where you totally forget where your actions just ‘flow’ without thinking.” Z-Type perfectly encapsulates this feeling, making proficiency in the game incredibly rewarding.
This satisfying sensation is precisely what Elecom developer Mike Smith aimed to capture in his upcoming typing beat ’em up, Keys of Fury. He enthusiastically told GameSpot, “I got very excited about the idea of making a typing game that was face-meltingly awesome.”
Smith’s Keys of Fury, which debuted its demo during the most recent Steam Next Fest, represents the vanguard of a new generation of typing games. These titles follow in the footsteps of classics like Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and Z-Type, and more recent hits such as Nanotale and Keyboard Sports. Developers are actively pushing the boundaries of the genre, frequently fusing different gameplay styles to forge entirely fresh experiences. In Keys of Fury, every typed word triggers action-packed combat. Touch Type Tale by Pumperknickle Studio marries real-time strategy with typing. Outer Brain Studios’ Blood Typers leverages typing for its survival horror gameplay, while Glyphica: Typing Survival uses typing to annihilate waves of enemies in roguelite rounds, akin to an amplified Z-Type. Final Sentence, a standout at Steam Next Fest, even combines the battle royale format with typing mechanics.
The keyboard in these games isn’t merely an input device; it’s the very core of the gameplay. Smith emphasized, “I wanted every keystroke to matter so that you get a lot of satisfaction just as you push a ‘punch’ button on a controller. I wanted every keystroke to matter. There’s that immediate, satisfying attack and sound effect.”
Given the keyboard’s fundamental role in many PC games, it’s logical that typing would seamlessly integrate as a core mechanic across diverse genres. Malte Hoffman, from German developer Pumpernickle Studio—creators of the 2024 release Touch Type Tale—found real-time strategy a natural fit for typing elements. RTS games like StarCraft 2 already rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts for various actions. This insight sparked the Pumpernickle team’s initial idea: what if an RTS could be played solely with the keyboard, without even a mouse for menu navigation?
Unlike many older typing games that prioritize pure speed, accuracy is paramount in a game like Touch Type Tale. Hoffman explained to GameSpot, “It certainly helps if you’re very fast at typing, but there’s a limit. Beyond that, typing faster doesn’t help you much. Your brain is slower, because you have decisions to make.” He believes a truly great typing game offers more strategic depth than just rapid finger movement.
Final Sentence, developed by Button Mash, also strongly emphasizes accuracy. While the battle royale format demands fast typing, precision is equally critical. As a multiplayer online game, like other battle royales, only one player can emerge victorious. The game’s premise is intensely dramatic: 40 to 100 players find themselves in a dimly lit room, each equipped with a typewriter and overseen by a man with a gun. The typewriter is for typing, naturally, but the armed guard? He’s there to eliminate you if you make too many errors. The terrifying twist is that if you don’t type fast enough, you also meet your demise. The game’s popularity surged during Steam Next Fest, leading developer Dmitry Minsky to constantly add more servers to keep up with demand.
It shares a surprising kinship with the typing mini-games from Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, save for the presence of a firearm. Minsky noted the significant audience for typing trainers like MonkeyType or TypeRacer, where users measure their words-per-minute. However, those platforms offer the luxury of a backspace key, allowing corrections and easing the tension. “Here, the tension is so huge that you feel it,” Minsky said. “You’re always stressed.”
That intense pressure also fuels Blood Typers, the survival horror game from Outer Brain Studios, a four-person development team. Released in February with a recent October update, Blood Typers clearly draws inspiration from Typing of the Dead, but delivers a high-stress, cooperative, and bloody survival experience that’s completely off-rails. The terrifying approach of a gurgling zombie creates a similar surge of adrenaline: you type, or you die. Dmitry Pirag, a Blood Typers developer, told GameSpot, “Typing is such a physical activity. The physicality of it just works with the horror, and taps into something where it feels even more immersive, because you know that you’re in control of every action. It’s extremely skill based.”
Pirag also highlighted Blood Typers’ various modes, which allow players to customize the difficulty. You can make the typing mechanics more forgiving, giving ample time for key hunting and pecking, while simultaneously ramping up the survival horror elements to challenge players in different ways. Ultimately, as Xuanming Zhou, developer of the typing roguelite Glyphica: Typing Survival, explains, a game’s innovation means little if its system doesn’t “get out of the way and let the player type.” He asserts that blending roguelite elements with typing works because neither component obstructs the other; “One is a control system; the other is a progression system.”
“The goal of Glyphica is to get out of the players way and let them type,” Zhou stated. “A roguelike progression system enables exactly that. Unlike genres defined by control schemes that might conflict with typing, roguelike mechanics fit perfectly without compromise.” Glyphica: Typing Survival echoes Z-Type in some respects; players command a turret, firing at enemies that swarm the screen. Each foe bears a word, and typing it blasts them away. The challenge lies in eliminating them before they reach you. However, Glyphica: Typing Survival enhances this classic formula with roguelite elements, offering upgrades, loot, and escalating weapons that adapt to increasingly difficult hordes. This creates a thrilling dynamic between typing skill and speed, intertwined with the unpredictable nature of roguelite progression.
This new wave of typing games selectively incorporates elements from past eras, building upon the foundations laid before. It’s this historical groundwork that has paved the way for the future of typing games—a future where the keyboard is both a familiar peripheral and a dynamic gameplay mechanic. Zhou aptly describes it as a resurgence: “Several typing games have done reasonably well recently, helping to gather a ready audience for the genre. That’s probably created more confidence in the commercial vitality of typing games, reducing the risk for developers exploring them.”
Despite this, typing games remain a niche genre, and may continue to be so, as keyboard typing is less universal than it once was, with smartphones and tablets replacing physical keyboards for many. Yet, a generation holds a strong sense of nostalgia for typing, and that intrinsic appeal is invaluable. As Touch Type Tale developer Hoffman beautifully put it, “What connects all these games is the joy of typing, right? Typing just feels satisfying. It’s a great mode to connect with something that’s already done, which is games. Exploring the space [and] using this great input method of typing [to play games] has a lot of opportunity.”