Backspace Bouken

DISCLAIMER: I'm a retired medical transcriptionist who types 90 WPM, so my impression of this game is likely quite different from gamers who are not professional typists. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Backspace Bouken is quite good. Not perfect, but good enough that I played to the end and I had a fun time with it! The dungeon-crawler aspect of the game is just a thin veneer, so gamers looking for a dungeon-crawler will likely not be impressed. No weaponry or armor to find, no skills to level up, and only a paper-thin plot. I'm only casually into dungeon-crawlers, so I didn't mind at all. What kept the fun alive for me was the reasonably good variety of difficulty (short words and sentences, long words and sentences, punctuation), and the pleasant playful humor. Nothing laugh-out-loud funny, but a solidly constant kooky stream of punny wordplay. Aside from the puns, the sentences are quite real-worldly. Stuff that a transcriptionist of casual speech would be right at home with. The only two negatives I have about Backspace Bouken are both fairly mild negatives: 1. The collection of backspaces. I never needed them, and I can't imagine anybody except flat-out beginner typists needing them. Not a biggie, though, because reading the texts before collecting the backspaces usually got an amused smile out of me. 2. The Final Boss (on both Tower of F8 and the Christmas-themed section whose title I can't remember) is pretty much impossible to beat without making heavy use of dodging via an arrow keystroke. I disliked that because that's something that doesn't exist in the real typing world. Hard to practice typing skills this way. CONCLUSION: I had a real good time with Backspace Bouken. The fun typing gameplay and nonstop punny humor kept me engaged. Should there ever be a sequel, I'd certainly be interested. Great job, RNG Party Games!!!

This is a nifty little indie title that's perfect for anyone with introductory touch-typing skills. It's very basic with most of a player's ability to succeed rests in their ability to type quickly without looking to the keyboard for reference. While it can be frustrating for beginners (I myself used this game to supplement my touch-typing), I've found coming back to it years later that it's not a bad challenge for the intermediate typist. Trained typists need not apply, as there's little of interest to the game outside of a lot of groan-inducing puns and simple yet highly effective graphics

I like dungeon crawlers, I'll even bash my head trying to figure out where to go, but I wish it had a quicksave... I can only handle this in short bursts. I got lost on the third floor of the Library and my last save was after the last boss in the previous zone. Felt very uncaring on the part of the game. Didn't anticipate having to get to subsequent Floors to finish completing previous floors.

I was really impressed by the combat for this game. Not only does it encourage you to be fast and accurate at typing but there are a few thoughtful additional mechanics. The "limited spaces" component encourages you to explore the map, and the optional contractions to extend the use of your spaces both are really smart ways to tie the dungeon crawler and typing aspects together. A lot of typing games feel like the game part is just a nice aesthetic around the typing, but this does feel very much like a game as well.

A mashup of genres I didn't know I needed in my life till I tried it. An absolute delight.

Do you like puns? If so, consider this an immediate purchase! It's a neat little dungeon-crawler, full of weird little quirks and jokes and a couple okay puzzles here and there. Once you learn about the dodging mechanic, it's fairly easy, but there's still a good number of little secrets and details that make it worth running through. With the DLC it's a bit over two hours long-I didn't 100% the game, but I came darn close. It's a pretty tightly designed two hours, though. Charming little piece, and extremely recommended if "typing game based on classic Japanese first-person dungeon crawlers" sounds like it's up your alley.

Backspace Bouken combines the experience of a classic dungeon crawler with mechanics of a casual typing tutor game. It does so with some charming dialogue and enemies, and some mostly player friendly level and puzzle design. I like this game a lot, despite its basic flaws. Pros: + Simple, clean, fun story + Old school graphics and sound + Reasonably difficult levels and puzzles + The game length and overall challenge level are solid Cons: - An early encounter sets your game's difficulty based on how fast you type. I got cucked hard by the game, because I type fast as hell. Seriously, like 180+ wpm fast. This makes the game super sweaty. - The introduction of the "dodge" mechanic is easy to miss. (Heh.) If you don't learn it early, you're going to find the last 2-3 boss battles to be very difficult. Exceptionally so if you got the max level of difficulty because you typed too fast at the start. Also related to the dodge mechanic: Backspace Bouken is a typing game. Why introduce a more or less necessary mechanic that requires you to regularly remove a hand from your keyboard's home row, and that you then reset your fingers in the heat of the moment? It took away from the fluidity of the typing experience in my opinion. Score: B+ Easy buy on sale, if you like typing games and/or dungeon crawlers.