With most people using computers and the internet on a daily basis, typing is becoming more relevant to our everyday lives. It’s worth taking the time to hone your touch typing skills and improve your average words per minute (WPM), but everyone learns differently. Some typists start with traditional teaching tools likeMavis Beacon Teaches Typing, but you might prefer to educate yourself with entertainment.
Whether you’re a beginner looking to learn or an experienced typist who enjoys clacking away on a keyboard, here are the best typing games to help you become a keyboard master.
10Mondays: a Sisyphean Typing Game
Writing emails may not sound like a fun time, butMondays: a Sisyphean Typing Gameturns mundane messaging into an addictive challenge. Based on the Greek Myth of Sisyphus,Mondaystasks you with rolling a boulder to the top of a mountain by typing a series of corporate emails. Accuracy is essential to reaching greater heights, as just one typo will send you rolling back down to the bottom.
Unlike Sisyphus, your efforts won’t be completely in vain. Every attempt earns you points that go towardspurchasing hats, patterns, and facesfor the boulder—allowing you to bring some fashion to your exercise in futility. These points can also be redeemed to unlock longer emails, allowing you to climb further up the mountain with each upgrade.
Mondaysis a very straightforward game, but you’ll likely find yourself returning to its addictive challenge for “just one more run.” If you want a simple timewaster that will teach you to type like a pro,Mondaysis the game for you.
9Glyphica: Typing Survival
Glyphica: Typing Survivalis a typing-themed twist onVampire Survivorsand the rest of the “bullet-heaven” genre. Much like other bullet-heaven games,Glyphicarevolves around fending off endless crowds of enemies by gradually building an arsenal of bullet-spewing weapons. Rather than passively mowing down hordes of hostiles, however, surviving inGlyphicarequires quick reflexes and even faster fingers.
Instead of auto-firing or manually aiming your shots,Glyphicahas you deliver attacks by typing out the words that appear above each enemy. At the start of a run, most enemies can be defeated with only one or two words. However, it won’t take long for the difficulty to ramp up and enemies to appear in faster variants, bigger hordes, and tougher defenses that require lengthier vocabulary.
Fortunately, you won’t have to type out everything that appears on-screen. As you level up by gaining experience from defeated enemies, you will be able to acquire new weapons and upgrade the ones you’ve already collected. Some of these include deployable turrets that damage nearby enemies, drones that actively hunt down foes, and electric traps that target multiple enemies at once.
Glyphica: Typing Survivalis still inearly access, but there’s already enough content to keep you hooked for dozens of hours, with even more planned for future updates.
8The Chef’s Shift
The Chef’s Shiftis both a typing game and a restaurant management sim, in the same vein asCook, Serve, Delicious!andDiner Dash. As the head chef of a small Italian restaurant (and eventually other establishments), you’ll be taking orders, prepping food, and serving customers through quick typing.
Later levels bring additional mechanics and new challenges to the dining room. You’ll be tasked with preparing more menu options, shooting rats before they can steal prepped meals, and dealing with different types of customers. Rich diners can only be served inall-caps text, tourists ask you to type out words from other languages, and mimes ask you to type phrases composed entirely of punctuation marks.
The Chef’s Shiftis just as charming as it is challenging. Between levels, a genre-blending story about jewelry thieves, mobsters, and culinary conspiracies plays out, constantly toeing the line between a cheesy soap opera and a gripping crime drama. Mixed with its oddball humor and colorful art style,The Chef’s Shiftis a perfect platter of melodrama and micromanagement.
7Touch Type Tale
Most typing games revolve around one straightforward activity, butTouch Type Taledelivers a city-builder and /real-time strategy (RTS)hybrid that makes a typing game out of just about everything.
Each level sees you take charge of a small town, constructing various facilities to gather resources and recruiting troops to defend against the invading armies of bandits. However, this isn’t as simple as building a structure and passively watching the money roll in. Instead, you’ll type through a variety ofminigamesrevolving around different activities, such as detonating rocks in the mine, planting and harvesting crops on the farm, or prepping meals at a cook-off. At the same time, you’ll also use the keyboard to guide your army around the map to confront enemy forces and expand your town.
Managing all of these tasks simultaneously can get hectic—especially in later levels—yetTouch Type Talemakes balancing these tasks feel remarkably seamless. Rather than digging through cluttered menus or anoverly complicated UI,Touch Type Taleis controlled entirely through your keyboard. Swapping between different tasks is as easy as typing a single word. Activities are displayed through a small window at the bottom of the screen, making it easy to multitask between city planning, resource gathering, and combat strategizing.
Everything I’ve described only scratches the surface ofTouch Type Tale. The lengthy campaign constantly introduces mechanics and minigames throughout its many levels. Thanks to its strategic depth, wonderful storybook presentation, and charmingly self-aware sense of humor,Touch Type Taleoutshines many other classics from its own genres.
6Every Letter
Unlike most other games on this list,Every Letteris a cozy experience wherein typing speed isn’t as important as your creativity. Instead, you receive a handful of requests to write letters from various clients and can select which task you’d like to complete. Each request provides a brief description of the client’s background and the purpose of the letter, but it’s up to you to deliver their message in your own words.
You won’t be graded on your letters or receive feedback based on what you wrote; the requests are essentially creative writing prompts. Being that your letters are written on a typewriter, you don’t have a backspace to erase any mistakes, but there’s otherwise nothing to stop you from writing whatever you want. If you’re willing to immerse yourself inEvery Letter, you’ll find a soothing—sometimes heartfelt—experience that’s perfect for anyone who enjoys putting their creativity into practice.
5The Typing of the Dead
It’s almost impossible to talk about typing games without at least mentioningThe Typing of the Dead. While it didn’t invent the concept of typing games,The Typing of the Deadwas one of the first games to present them as more than a teaching tool, having originally appeared in arcades before coming over to home consoles and PCs.
The Typing of the Deadis essentially an altered version ofThe House of the Dead 2that replaces the iconic rail-shooter’slight gun controllerswith a pair ofQWERTY keyboards. Instead of aiming and shooting, you rapid-fire various words and nonsensical phrases from your keyboard. Despite its completely different peripheral,The Typing of the Deadshares the same high-energy and explosive fun of the shooter it’s based on. Whether you’re violently blasting through foes with vocabulary or confronting bosses with rapid key presses, seeing your touch typing skills improve is just as fun as gunning through the undead hordes. Best of all, you may team up with a friend in the game’slocal multiplayer mode.
Unfortunately,The Typing of the Deadand its direct sequel—The Typing of the Dead 2—aren’t officially available on any modern platforms. Thankfully, the latest entry in the series—The Typing of the Dead: Overkill—and its DLC are still available to purchase through Steam and GOG. Although I personally prefer the hilariously terrible acting and faster pace of the originalTyping of the Dead,Overkillis a worthy successor to the typing game that paved the way for an entire genre.
4Secret of Qwerty
Secret of Qwertyis both a love-letter toretro JRPGsand an exciting re-imagining of the genre. You can expect to see standard RPG tropes such as random encounters, perilous dungeons, and a quest to save the world, all wrapped up in a charming retro aesthetic. However,Secret of Qwertytrades the genre’sturn-based combatfor fast-paced typing-based battles inspired byThe Typing of the Dead.
There’s a fair bit of depth toSecret of Qwertythat extends beyond your touch typing skills. Every battle rewards you with XP and gold, which can be used to level up and purchase better equipment. Your character will also acquire various combat abilities throughout the journey, giving you more options in combat apart from furiously typing your enemies to death.
3Epistory - Typing Chronicles
Epistory - Typing Chroniclesmight be the most imaginative typing game you will ever find. Following a girl and her three-tailed fox,Epistorypresents a fantastical journey that will have you exploring mysterious lands across a storybook world that (literally) unfolds in front of you. Throughout each region, you can shape the world by typing to clear obstacles, fend off monsters, and open new pathways for exploration.
Epistoryalso boasts a wider selection of accessibility options than you would normally find in a typing game. The game supports multiple differentkeyboard layouts besides QWERTY, offers numerous language options, and providesextensive modding supportfor further customization. There is also adynamic difficulty systemthat alters the game based on your current WPM, though you can disable this feature at any time.
Despite being a linear adventure, the world ofEpistoryfeels massive and offers enough freedom to make you wonder what lies ahead at every turn. Combined with the game’s beautiful origami landscapes, evocative soundtrack, and the captivating meta-story of its narrator,Epistoryis one of the most creative typing games ever made. If you take the time to experience its adventure and find yourself wishing for more, you can also try its sequel,Nanotale - Typing Chronicles.
2Blood Typers
There are plenty of spooky-themed typing games—including one that I haven’t mentioned just yet—butBlood Typersis the only genuine horror game on this list. Taking heavy inspiration fromsurvival horror classicslikeResident EvilandSilent Hill,Blood Typersdrops you and up to three other players into creepy locales, where you must work together to solve puzzles, evade nightmarish creatures, and survive long enough to find an exit.
What makesBlood Typersso unique is its melding of classic survival horror mechanics with the thrill of touch typing. You manage your limited inventory by typing out commands to pick up, use, or drop specific items. Exposition-filled computer logs are read by typing out a transcript against a short timer. Combat plays very similarly toThe Typing of the Dead, but requires you to be mindful of your limited ammunition. Even movement is handled by typing out words and phrases, often adding to the tension of trying to escape from the horrifying creatures that roam the game’s blood-soaked hallways.
Blood Typersis a fantastic horror game in its own right, but the added challenge of being a typing game makes it a must-play for any die-hard horror fan. Each of the game’s atmospheric levels pays homage to different horror sub-genres, and their random layouts make each playthrough terrifyingly unpredictable.
1The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia
The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbiais easily the toughest game on this list. This brutally difficult mashup ofbullet-hell shootersand typing games follows the titular Ray Bibbia, an ex-priest who works as a freelance exorcist. Ray’s odd jobs see him banishing the forces of hell through bullet-hell battles, wherein you must type out full Latin invocations while dodging a constant screen-filling stream of projectiles. As you can probably imagine,The Textorcistis hard—often frustratingly so—but its high challenge makes it perfect for experienced typists looking to put their skills to the test.
Spread between levels is a story that starts out as a gritty character drama, but quickly swerves into an absurdist supernatural adventure. Along with a wonderfully dark sense of humor, the amazingly detailed pixel art andpulse-pounding soundtrackmakeThe Textorcista captivating spectacle from start to finish. While its unrelenting difficulty and deliberately provocative subject matter won’t appeal to everyone,The Textorcistis one of the most memorable typing games you could ever play.
Typing games can be an amazing tool for touching up on your touch typing skills or the perfect genre for fast-paced, precision-based challenges. Regardless of whether you’re learning to type or have years of experience, you shouldn’t miss out on this underrated genre.
