ninja-based typing game with pleasant aesthetics, fitting if repetitive music, satisfying sfx (except the bonus point noise in survival) and multiple ways to play. words, including many abbreviations and acronyms, keep falling, type them or the name of power-ups if you have any and do the best you can. no need to press enter unless it's a power-up, backspace clears up typos.
it's in a better shape now (the review covers v1.5) but [b]should've launched as early access[/b]. besides bosses, survival and zen modes, there was no explanation for anything until a month and a half later and there was (and is) other stuff missing too. now there's a [b]buggy and unintuitive tutorial with the tiniest font and a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ typewriter effect[/b] that can't be sped up by clicking or pressing something, and while it says 'any key' works to progress, it's only enter (or a click). more informative menus too, except [b]mouseover tooltips also have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ typewriter effect[/b] because god forbid one could quickly see what does what. [b]mid-level and mid-run saving aren't planned, so I can't give it a thumbs up.[/b] bloody fools only care about cosmetic ♥♥♥♥, not basic functionality, and sadly the dev shares their view, business as usual.
the [b]11 mask quests[/b] are offered in 5 difficulties from peaceful to impossible. they're unlocked one at a time and only for that difficulty and below. used to take about 10 minutes each with 15-20 phases, slightly more later and on peaceful due to slower speed. at first I thought peaceful had unlimited lives too but nope. now there are only 8-11 phases per level, still with about a dozen words each, so they should be over faster. reminds me of another dev who, instead of adding audio settings, simply removed all audio from their game. this one couldn't be bothered with saving, so cut 'content' in half instead. lazy.
[b]various mechanics[/b] are on display. stone and chained blocks have to be typed multiple times, the word changes on the former. bubbles appear on the bottom and go upwards, shy words only show their first couple letters, more as you type, and there are others and their combinations. e.g. bubbled wood shouldn't be typed fast, as I learned to my cost, because obviously the wood, now exposed and showing a new word, will immediately fall off and take a life. the worse is having to type the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ word 4 or 5 times, then a 5th or 6th different thing, with about 10 words on the screen.
eventually, a pop-up appears, telling you about the upcoming [b]boss fight[/b]. to damage the mask, you need to type words appearing above it periodically, while still dealing with random words everywhere. there's a different boss (or bosses) for each chapter with their own shenanigans. smoke bombs, adding random letters to words or shuffling them, using words to damage you, etc. some more annoying than others but good variety, I found. when I played on release, they all had 30 hp all the time, which was weird, but now it's based on difficulty.
random [b]power-ups[/b] are awarded after each phase. typing [i]aid[/i] restores a life, [i]ice[/i] freezes every word on the screen for a few seconds, [i]bom[/i] makes random words explode, [i]zap[/i] lasts for a few seconds and removes 2 random extra words with the typed one, and [i]air[/i] is a brief rewind if you will. comboing them (ice and air, for instance) can do wonders but in the heat of the moment I could barely remember to use just the one, then press enter too. and since they're random, not having the right one at the right time can ♥♥♥♥ up the entire attempt.
the game over/win screen shows the score, time, wpm, number of words and letters typed and power-ups used. none of these are visible during play, which I didn't mind, would be too distracting. still, could be added as options, some might want and be able to keep track amidst all the action. a more informative phase counter got patched in, says 02/10 instead of just 02.
there are [b]8 survival modes[/b] now with their own leaderboards (no friends filter or anything). [i]main[/i] has all the trimmings with a boss at every 10th phase, [i]classic[/i] is the same but no bosses, [i]vanilla[/i] only has falling words without mechanics. [i]boss marathon[/i] has a big bad at every 3rd phase, [i]baby survival[/i] is main mode, so has bosses, but only uses letters, not words (except for the bonus block), and [i]extreme survival[/i] is like main but harder. [i]slow mode[/i] and [i]powerless mode[/i] were added after launch, the clue is in their name.
and finally, [b]'typenchill'[/b] is your pointless (in more ways than one) zen experience, good for general typing practice and figuring out power-up synergies. not only is there no hp loss or shortage of power-ups (you start with 100 of each), but difficulty can be controlled by typing faster/slower and longer/shorter. neat. speed affects fall speed and time between words, length can be between 3 and 10 letters.
[b]a typing game should be 100% keyboardable but this one isn't.[/b] simple arrow navigation, please, not 'type leaderboards to go to leaderboards' ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. now only esc works in the menu and to bring up the pause/exit screen, plus you can type 'start' to pass the boss pop-up. can't even click the arrows on level select, they've been buggy since they got added, even though I reported the issue immediately.
the less than bare-bones settings were initially only accessible from the main menu, now they're available anytime. separate volumes for music and sound and a toggle for 'keycaps sfx' (typing sound but backspace makes a sound regardless), the end. [b]according to the v1.5 patch notes there should be more but nothing was added.[/b] no windowed mode, no resolutions, nothing to make text display more accessible. I found the font and its size and colors perfectly fine but it's a tricky subject, especially in a quick-action situation, so some options would be good. in fact, alternate fonts are already in the game, one of the bosses kindly changes it sometimes.
achievements got patched in, none triggered retroactively and they're all boring and grindy. type 'a' 10 and 100 times, type 'b' 10 and 100 times, and so on. lame. they could and should get a lot more creative in a game like this. don't care either way, but a stats section would also be useful. and if possible, a custom game mode to set and toggle all the variables. plus dictionaries in other languages, which are planned. the current one has some german words, uk and us spelling mixed together and all the acronyms, so more dictionary customization would be good too.
sent a bunch of feedback at launch and there have been improvements, so if you like typing games and no saving or the other stuff isn't a problem for you, this is an okay addition to the collection. I'm very particular about losing progress though. enjoyed my time with it otherwise, except when a mechanic pissed me off (chapters 8-10 have too much ♥♥♥♥ at the same time unless it got toned down since) or the game didn't recognize clicking start before the second boss on level 8 (which, again, was a lot longer then) and I was only told later that typing it would've also worked.
[b]the demo got removed after release[/b], always a ♥♥♥♥ move and another dealbreaker, but an updated version was promised to be back at some point. unless they won't bother with that either, we'll see. the basics are still the same, so the original would suffice in the meantime or permanently. with the full release so lacking and missing everything initially, the demo couldn't have been much worse and it takes 2 clicks to put it back on the store page.
