Typing games! That’s our type of thing. This one launched in October 2024 and is by solo indie dev aliasBLACK (Xuanming Zhou), who has created arguably the GREATEST keyboard-based game of all time.
Glyphica: Typing Survival is a roguelite horde survival game. You fend off waves of words by typing them out mega fast, upskilling your arsenal, and all whilst trying to stay the hell calm. It’s lots of fun!
Get Ready to Bash Your Keyboard in… Glyphica: Typing Survival
Okay, this is only available on PC (for obvious reasons). If you fancy giving it a go, there’s a free web browser demo right here: Play Glyphica. There’s a free demo on Steam, too!
The first game from this genre was with the Medieval jaunt Touch Typing Tale (2023), which features Jim Broadbent’s vocal talents. We discovered Glyphica through Steam’s current Typing Fest games extravaganza. Yes, that’s a sale on all the leading typing games in the world.
This one was recommended first and has over 1,700 reviews on Steam (at Very Positive), meaning Glyphica is arguably the best known genre staple out there. Or best. Or something.
Whatever, we had a blast with this one. Even if it is panic-stricken mayhem at times.
Although still in Early Access, and receiving continuous updates from the developer, it’s all good to go in its current form. You can play in dark or light mode and once you’re set there, you launch in to type your way to victory! As enemies approach your little ship, they have a word over the top you type that word to destroy them. Like this!
As you can see from the chaos above, it all gets pretty mental. You rapidly upgrade your little defence ships weapons and can obliterate enemies at a pace, but bosses can be tricky to take down. Lots of panic! You need to stay bloody calm, matey.
The waves of enemies are intriguing, some with deterministic approach strategies, whilst others storm into the situation like lemmings.
Obviously, the better at touch typing you are, the better chance you’ve got going into Typing Survival. We’re damn good at it, with a WPM (words per minute) of about 80-90 (check us out, we’re special we know it). But it’s tough to keep your brain together when your screen is overwhelmed with words.
That’s where the game excels, as a hyper-addictive keyboard basher where your cool, calm typing is needed. We’d recommend this game to NASA as if a wannabe astronaut can’t handle Glyphica: Typing Survival, then there’s no chance in Hell they’re making it to Mars.
Anyway, game sessions last around 10-20 minutes and there’s enough content to last around six hours.
It’s fast-paced, frantic, pick-up-and-play excellence. It’s also very easy to get obsessed with it and work yourself towards RSI, so do remember to take a break. As this game really does turn you into a mighty keyboard warrior.
