Flappy Bird Typing Tutor | Hacker News Reader

Flappy Bird Typing Tutor

mrspeaker.net

212 pointsmrspeaker76 comments

Hey everyone, dev here - thanks for the awesome feedback. Rather than one-at-a-time-ing things, here's some responses!

1. Font sucks? Feature, not a flaw.

2. Game crashes? Ummm... feature, not a flaw.

3. Need mouse to restart? Nope, there aren't any real buttons in the game. Just press space.

4. Did you credit original? Err, no.. it's got the original copyright on the title screen, but I'll add a note to point out I stole the gfx.

5. How did you steal the gfx? I just copied out the sprite atlas inside the iPhone app and cut it up in javascript/canvas. I tried to recreate things as closely as possible (screen transitions etc, not physics!).

6. Hey, do you make other awesome games in your free time? Why yes! just check out the blog at http://www.mrspeaker.net!

Kids who are learning to type probably won't be able to read your font. They'll likely get frustrated and put it down rather quickly. Is it meant to be a typing tutor for kids?

I think it's a rather fun PR stunt, don't get too hung up on how useful it actually is ;)

Didn't think I'd need to explicitly write this one, but...

7. Is this stupid thing supposed to improve my typing? No.

This is pretty cool! I see you've written a JS game lib called Ω, but I can't find any more info about it. Is it not public yet? You seemed to have solved the problem of using sounds in JS, which is something I am very interested in.

Hey - yeah, "Ω500" https://github.com/mrspeaker/Omega500/ is the name for my library/engine thing that I use for game jams. I just wrote it because you have to publicly release any code you use for Ludum Dare before each competition. Several Ludum-Dares later and it's getting pretty good (for me, anyway! I made this game in about 8 hours over the weekend). Though the audio support is very very straight-forward: it's not tough at all if you're only targeting modern browsers.

All the code for the game is in the /ex directory: https://github.com/mrspeaker/Omega500/tree/master/ex/flapjam

If you're looking for a more mature library I'd look at Pixi.js for pure rendering awesomeness, or Impact.js for a great full-fledged engine.

"Feature, not a flaw" is one of my favorite responses to bug feedback too. :)

That reminds me of The Typing of the Dead, a "House of the Dead" variant where you had to type words to shoot the zombies instead of pointing a gun.

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

Note that this is an official game and even has the players agents equipped with keyboards instead of guns in the ingame sequences.

Crimsonland, one of my favourite games of all time, has exactly that as a special survival game mode.

I neither knew Crimsonland and that it has such a mode. Thank you!

Typing of the Dead is an awesome game! I remember seeing this at a coin-op trade show when it first launched, it was using Sega's Naomi platform (which was basically a Dreamcast with a JAMMA interface). Everyone was laughing at it but my coworkers and I couldn't stop playing.

If you can find an old Dreamcast, it's worth it just for this game.

There's a sequel you can get on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/246580/

There was actually a PC port too: http://www.amazon.com/The-Typing-Dead-PC/dp/B00005RV5M

Amusingly, the in-game characters still walk around with Dreamcasts strapped to their backs.

Which actually worked better, because typing speed was on your side.

This doesn't really work for me because you have to alter your typing pace to navigate through pipes. While challenging/frustrating, I don't see that increasing my typing pace, which isn't that the goal of typing tutors? To increase speed/accuracy of your typing.

Do I seriously have to type slower to make it between things? This is awful.

I'm sure most experienced typers use muscle memory to type words quickly. This entire game is counter intuitive and unproductive for teaching typing since it forces you to think about typing letter for letter and not word for word.

An interesting and difficult game maybe, but it is almost useless as a typing tutor.

> Do I seriously have to type slower to make it between things? This is awful.

I found out the complete opposite. I'm a pretty fast typist but I learned touch typing at a rather late age, at around 26 or so. I still don't have a perfect technique but I have not really practiced it either.

Typing slowly pinpointed several flaws in my technique, some which I wasn't aware of. I already knew that using the "y" key with the wrong hand, but playing this game for some minutes also pointed out that I use the wrong hand or finger. For example I noticed that I use my index finger to type out x and c (rather than my ring and middle fingers).

I thoroughly enjoyed this and found it helpful.

Right, because Flappy Bird wasn't already punishingly difficult.

My thoughts exactly.

I think the designer might have been trolling ...

I haven't gotten beyond two pipes so far, and the first 3 words I had to type were "thwarts, frustration, vexation"

Cute game! Took me a while to realize I had to type in the word at the top of the screen though. I banged on my keyboard for a good long while before accidentally hitting the right letter and noticing that it had turned red. Perhaps a little hint or tip could help n00bs like me.

Same issue here. I thought I was supposed to press 1, or I, or l.

Did you reverse-engineer the original Flappy Bird to get the feeling so similar or just experimented until it felt right?

What I don't like is that you ripped off everything 1:1 without giving credit. Yes, right now, everybody knows Flappy Bird, but in a year, it'll be forgotten. Just for the sake of proper archiving, you should mention where the graphics and everything else come from.

In a year? You mean next week ;-)

I encountered a bug using Chrome. After dying a few times, I encountered this screen, which I can't get past: http://i.imgur.com/yWbm8bq.png

It may frustrate some users and drive them away. I'll leave the tab open if you need me to run some javascript code to tell you the current state of the program. Let me know.

EDIT: Pretty fun. After a few attempts, my high score is 34: http://i.imgur.com/YNaIWI6.png ... It's more of a spelling tutor than a typing tutor, because remembering how to spell words is a huge advantage compared to staring at the words.

Something I should mention: The letter forms are extremely difficult to read. V's look like U's, A's look like R's, and Z's look like 2's.

I think this is a wonderful educational tool. Thank you for creating it.

Actually, I find it annoying when I lose because I typo'd. Spelling the words isn't really an issue for me.

It's a typing tutor, so typos should make you lose. Avoiding them is exactly the point of such games.

Arrrgh! I can't recreate the crash on Chrome. I tried on Chrome Canary and latest stable. If (for some crazy reason) you still have the tab open - does it report anything in the error console? Thanks for doing that by the way!

I kept it open in case you wanted to debug it. Here's a current screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/qfgkNRi.png

When I click on the bird and press 'd', nothing happens. Nothing more is output to the console, either.

Is there anything in particular you'd like me to type into the console to help you debug this?

My Chrome version is "Version 32.0.1700.107 m".

He said that's a feature.

"If you thought Flappy Bird was hard, YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET!"

Off topic: Anybody remember the typing tutor shooter game featured on HN a while back? Thanks in advance.

Update: Found it, http://phoboslab.org/ztype/

One of the hardest games I've ever played, ha.

I got stuck at 2 for a long time, but then finally something clicked and I got all the way to number 5!

What a great game! I would love to see a leaderboard -- contrary to most casual games, high scores in this game would really impress me.

Now that's hard.

The next logical step is to type in point-free Haskell programs.

This is interesting, but... Font isn't perfect for such task. Also there seems to be no key to restart the game. Why game forces me to reach my mouse when it is focused on typing?

In my personal experience best typing game is http://phoboslab.org/ztype/

There is actually a key to restart! You'd never know though, because of the poor UI design.

I think that more time has been devoted to writing articles about Flappy Bird, than went into creating Flappy Bird.

Oh man, this was amazing. I just starting giggling and broke out into full out hearty laughter because it was so fun. I couldn't play more than 30 seconds, mind you, because it was infuriatingly difficult, but amazing nonetheless.

Going back from 32 to 4 it's too hard. I need to learn to type.

Great game. What are your highscores so far? http://i.imgur.com/8jGJatE.jpg

I got to 12 and have to get some work done :-P

I'm sorry but.. what should I do ? which key will work ? because I tried azerty, qwerty, space bar, up arrow key, nothing works..

The V looks like a U, but it is V. Feature, not a flaw?

Type the text displayed at the top.

Imitation aside, the novel thing about this adaptation, is that it practices your typing pace and control. Other typing games focus more on raw speed. Some tutors report/measure your typing rate (Klavaro - fluidity, Amphetype - viscosity). This might some otherway. Though it's doing my shoulder in.

This is next to impossible to play for a strong typist, and bad practice for a budding typist, not to mention the game was already frustrating enough when you didn't have to distinguish that V from that U in a word you haven't seen in a book for years, now it's just not fun.

So I bothered to download the game, set it up in a local nginx instance and mod the code a bit..

http://goput.it/qzb5.png http://goput.it/shq4.png

Unnecessary:

    game.screen.state.set("RUNNING")
    game.screen.bird.state.set("DYING")
    game.screen.score = 23

found a bug: /dev/game/flappy/ should be /devil/game/flappy

I have two words for this: cognitive overload! My brain almost liquefied itself.

This is a funny rendition of the Flappy Bird game, you took a frustrating game and made it impossible. It serves as a nice memorial to the now-late game, which is pretty cool!

Is it just me or is the recorded score incorrect? Pretty sure I scored 8 but it shows 9. Then again I haven't played the original so maybe I'm missing something :p

Doesn't seem to work in firefox? (The search bar keeps getting activated.) I think I have the "automatically search on typing" option selected though.

I broke my iPhone yesterday, now my mac :-/

Haha, this is awesome. Mr Speaker, you rock.

Maybe it's just me, but I find this to be a much more enjoyable game than the original Flappy Bird.

Huh? Typing tutors should encourage speed, not rhythm. I should be rewarded for speed and accuracy.

Ridiculously hard. Decent concept. Font really hard to read, especially V's and U's.

It is really irritating when you can't score despite trying hard :(

And I thought flappy bird was hard itself. This is pretty cool.

When ever the first letter is U it won't accept my input.

This is great practice for texting and driving !

Wow is the js game code open sourced somewhere?

Would love to see a game tougher than this!

Typpy Bird would be a better name :)

Hilarious, but oh my god impossible!

This is hilarious. Well played, dev!

Already Flappy bird was tough! :(

Holy crap, that is difficult.

This is awful. Purely awful.

That font is unreadable.

My best score is 0!

That's tricky!

this is a new kind of torture.

Record

Reply on news.ycombinator.com