Typing Games

Tests, races and words that shoot

Typing games split into the ones that measure you and the ones that use typing as the control. The measuring kind is a speed test: a passage appears, you type it, the game reports words per minute and accuracy, and the good ones keep a history so the number can climb. The control kind turns each word into an action — type it to fire at a zombie, to move your car in a race, to pop a balloon before it reaches the top — so the pressure comes from the screen, not from a stopwatch.

The label gathers both, plus the alphabet games for children: catch falling letters, press the key that matches the picture, spell a short word before the timer ends. The word games hub holds the vocabulary puzzles where spelling matters but speed does not; the educational games hub has the other classroom skills; the shooters where the typing is the gun overlap with zombie games.

Categories:WordEducationalZombie

A keyboard is the point

This is the one shelf where a phone is the wrong device. An on-screen keyboard covers half the game, autocorrect fights the input, and a thumb cannot reach the words per minute the tests are built around; a phone with a Bluetooth keyboard is fine, a tablet with a cover keyboard is fine, a bare phone is a compromise. On a desktop everything works out of the box — click the text field once if the game does not focus it, then type.

Expect the speed tests to use ordinary prose and the races to use short common words; some games let you paste your own text or pick a language. Games that teach the home row start with a handful of keys and add more as you go, which is slow on purpose.

Who the shelf suits

Anyone learning to touch-type gets the most from it: students, adults who never learned properly, and children who are old enough to read. A speed test once a week and a word-shooter for practice is a reasonable routine, and the racing format makes the practice competitive for players who need that. Fast typists use the races as a warm-up and the tests to chase a personal best.

The children's letter games belong with the rest of the kids games hub, and the quiz-shaped titles that ask you to type an answer overlap with trivia games. For the pure reflex version of the same finger work, the arcade games hub is the neighbor. Sessions here are best kept short and regular — fifteen minutes a day beats an hour on Sunday — and the games are built around that, with rounds that end in a minute or two.

Categories:Arcade