Z-Type: Typing Game + Shoot'Em Up (Entry for Mozilla Game On) | Hacker News Reader

Z-Type: Typing Game + Shoot'Em Up (Entry for Mozilla Game On)

phoboslab.org

59 pointsfranck25 comments

Very nice game! As some others have said the progression speed was too slow, I got to level 25 before I got to see any ships basically...

There was one thing that bothered me multiple times though, I couldn't distinguish between t and f fast enough on some occasions, I would suggest switching to a different font.

Also, a High-score list would make things complete.

I decided for the Tungsten font over Helvetica/Arial because I felt it fits the game esthetically. I know that's a, from a user experience perspective, pretty stupid reason, but making this game look good was one of my priorities. Maybe I can shift a few pixel on the t/f to make it more clear.

I thought long about how to implement a highscore list, but with a JavaScript game there's really nothing stopping you from submitting fake scores. Even if I verify each word on the server side, a bot that plays the game would be trivial to implement. I have no idea how to make it at least a tiny bit "secure" :/

You could have one global list that essentially is a bot-competition (which I think is interesting in itself) and then allows users to create named lists, allowing friends to compete internally.

I like that this game avoids the usual trap of typing challenges, namely treating a typo as a fatal problem with serious penalties. Perhaps in the typewriter days this made sense, but nowadays a quick typo and backspace simply causes a minor slowdown.

Z-Type's use of typo-free typing as a simple bonus multiplier provides a penalty for typos without treating them as fatal problems. I can type far more quickly with occasional corrected typos than I can if I slow down enough to make zero typos in the first place. Thanks for handling that case!

Fantastic. Looking forward to seeing more games built using Impact. Is Z-Type going to be open sourced, or available on ImpactJS.com?

The source is pretty dirty right now, but I'll try to clean it up and release it publicly.

Would be nice to have to source -- I could tweak it for people like myself who are trying to learn the colemak layout. The initial word set would just come from the home-row and slowly branch out to other letter positions.

I am not a gamer but that was really fun and had to force myself to close the tab to get back to work.

ps. maybe make an option for the font to be slightly larger for those with high-res monitors and/or bad eyesight

Very fun. The game has just enough aesthetics to make every letter typed satisfying. I could even feel my typing improving over time.

I like the concept of the different ships, but the game doesn't get hard enough fast enough. I played through 30 levels before I got bored and stopped playing. Great potential, I can't wait to see what comes next.

I guess I'm just a slow typist. I will implement a hard mode soon.

Thanks for the feedback!

Rather than implementing a hard mode, why not just adapt to the user's typing rate? If the user types quickly and accurately, throw in a few more of the larger ships/words, or advance them to later levels more quickly.

You could also skip to the user's baseline level fairly easily. For instance, if the user types really well in an early level, throw in a quick "wormhole" with a sentence attached, and if they type all the words before it passes, they warp ahead a few levels.

The game never seems to get more difficult - it's just an endurance thing.

Right around level 27 or so these baddies come in that shoot probably 20 or so individual letters at once at you, and that's when things start getting a bit more interesting...

they actually come in earlier, but if you're a fast typist and not too slow on the uptake, you can manage to shoot those before they shoot at you.

I agree, the game is a tad too simple if you're a reasonable typist. Perhaps stressing the accuracy multiplier a bit more would make things more interesting.

It does, just very slowly - later levels have words that fire other words at you. It's surprisingly fun. There's a lot of potential here for game mechanics like achievements, challenges, leveling up.

I think the game is a bit too easy for good typists. Spaceships will start shooting words at you pretty early on (level five was when I encountered one) but only if you are slow enough to let them. (I’m not a very good typist and didn’t even make it beyond the fifteenth level.)

It starts to get more difficult around level 40 or so. I made it to 51: http://i.imgur.com/McY0g.png

When there's a lot of large words coming down at the top of the screen, the app definitely began missing input. I'd type a word correctly, but it would not recognize a character, so I'd have to context switch from deciding on which word to type next to finding which one was partially finished. Fun game, anyways.

Running Chrome 8.0 on OSX 10.6.5

Love it. Reminds me of Typing of the Dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Typing_of_the_Dead

It's a good game and an interesting way to work on my typing. I only noticed that accurate typing gave a score multiplier around level 30. As a player, it would help to have more feedback on accuracy. As a quick suggestion, maybe some text could appear by the player's ship that says something like "50 keys!" or "100 key combo!".

It would be really poignant if it made you type the words to "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen:

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? ---Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--- The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

Very nice!

I think I got to level 35 or so I just didn't let the baddies get close ... but once you let them in an little they start shooting letters at you

It crashed Chrome on Linux after a while; I'm using the beta channel.

Deducting health on typos might be a nice addition, now there is almost no penalty

EDIT : oh never mind, there's a multiplier that resets on typos ...

Fun! A game I'm good at for a change. It'd be great if you could add an estimate of typing speed at the end.

Played it until my browser crashed at 61. Is it finite and does it ever get harder?

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