Flappy Bird Typing Tutor

http://www.mrspeaker.net/dev/game/flappy

by mrspeaker • 12 years ago

212 76 12 years ago

mrspeaker.net

Timshel• 12 years ago

Going back from 32 to 4 it's too hard. I need to learn to type.

slipstream-3• 12 years ago

"If you thought Flappy Bird was hard, YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET!"

hugofirth• 12 years ago

I think the designer might have been trolling ...

I haven't gotten beyond two pipes so far, and the first 3 words I had to type were "thwarts, frustration, vexation"

NigelTufnel• 12 years ago

Now that's hard.

The next logical step is to type in point-free Haskell programs.

sillysaurus23• 12 years ago

I encountered a bug using Chrome. After dying a few times, I encountered this screen, which I can't get past: http://i.imgur.com/yWbm8bq.png

It may frustrate some users and drive them away. I'll leave the tab open if you need me to run some javascript code to tell you the current state of the program. Let me know.

EDIT: Pretty fun. After a few attempts, my high score is 34: http://i.imgur.com/YNaIWI6.png ... It's more of a spelling tutor than a typing tutor, because remembering how to spell words is a huge advantage compared to staring at the words.

Something I should mention: The letter forms are extremely difficult to read. V's look like U's, A's look like R's, and Z's look like 2's.

I think this is a wonderful educational tool. Thank you for creating it.

slipstream-3• 12 years ago

Actually, I find it annoying when I lose because I typo'd. Spelling the words isn't really an issue for me.

T-hawk• 12 years ago

It's a typing tutor, so typos should make you lose. Avoiding them is exactly the point of such games.

mrspeaker4• 12 years ago

Arrrgh! I can't recreate the crash on Chrome. I tried on Chrome Canary and latest stable. If (for some crazy reason) you still have the tab open - does it report anything in the error console? Thanks for doing that by the way!

sillysaurus23• 12 years ago

I kept it open in case you wanted to debug it. Here's a current screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/qfgkNRi.png

When I click on the bird and press 'd', nothing happens. Nothing more is output to the console, either.

Is there anything in particular you'd like me to type into the console to help you debug this?

My Chrome version is "Version 32.0.1700.107 m".

elwell• 12 years ago

He said that's a feature.

mrsebastian2• 12 years ago

One of the hardest games I've ever played, ha.

I got stuck at 2 for a long time, but then finally something clicked and I got all the way to number 5!

mrsebastian2• 12 years ago

Argorak2• 12 years ago

That reminds me of The Typing of the Dead, a "House of the Dead" variant where you had to type words to shoot the zombies instead of pointing a gun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Typing_of_the_Dead

Note that this is an official game and even has the players agents equipped with keyboards instead of guns in the ingame sequences.

azatris• 12 years ago

Crimsonland, one of my favourite games of all time, has exactly that as a special survival game mode.

Argorak2• 12 years ago

I neither knew Crimsonland and that it has such a mode. Thank you!

joezydeco• 12 years ago

Typing of the Dead is an awesome game! I remember seeing this at a coin-op trade show when it first launched, it was using Sega's Naomi platform (which was basically a Dreamcast with a JAMMA interface). Everyone was laughing at it but my coworkers and I couldn't stop playing.

If you can find an old Dreamcast, it's worth it just for this game.

CrazedGeek• 12 years ago

There's a sequel you can get on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/246580/

drv• 12 years ago

There was actually a PC port too: http://www.amazon.com/The-Typing-Dead-PC/dp/B00005RV5M

Amusingly, the in-game characters still walk around with Dreamcasts strapped to their backs.

surge• 12 years ago

Which actually worked better, because typing speed was on your side.

This doesn't really work for me because you have to alter your typing pace to navigate through pipes. While challenging/frustrating, I don't see that increasing my typing pace, which isn't that the goal of typing tutors? To increase speed/accuracy of your typing.

romanovcode• 12 years ago

That font is unreadable.

slipstream-3• 12 years ago

So I bothered to download the game, set it up in a local nginx instance and mod the code a bit..

http://goput.it/qzb5.png http://goput.it/shq4.png

christiangenco• 12 years ago

Unnecessary:

    game.screen.state.set("RUNNING")
    game.screen.bird.state.set("DYING")
    game.screen.score = 23

motoboi• 12 years ago

I have two words for this: cognitive overload! My brain almost liquefied itself.

_mc• 12 years ago

I broke my iPhone yesterday, now my mac :-/

shortformblog• 12 years ago

This is hilarious. Well played, dev!

johnward• 12 years ago

When ever the first letter is U it won't accept my input.

ntaso• 12 years ago

Did you reverse-engineer the original Flappy Bird to get the feeling so similar or just experimented until it felt right?

What I don't like is that you ripped off everything 1:1 without giving credit. Yes, right now, everybody knows Flappy Bird, but in a year, it'll be forgotten. Just for the sake of proper archiving, you should mention where the graphics and everything else come from.

prottmann• 12 years ago

In a year? You mean next week ;-)

chanux• 12 years ago

Off topic: Anybody remember the typing tutor shooter game featured on HN a while back? Thanks in advance.

Update: Found it, http://phoboslab.org/ztype/

tim333• 12 years ago

That's tricky!

isaacjohnwesley• 12 years ago

Already Flappy bird was tough! :(

svantana• 12 years ago

What a great game! I would love to see a leaderboard -- contrary to most casual games, high scores in this game would really impress me.

Gonzih• 12 years ago

This is interesting, but... Font isn't perfect for such task. Also there seems to be no key to restart the game. Why game forces me to reach my mouse when it is focused on typing?

In my personal experience best typing game is http://phoboslab.org/ztype/

tarblog2• 12 years ago

There is actually a key to restart! You'd never know though, because of the poor UI design.

mrspeaker4• 12 years ago

Hey everyone, dev here - thanks for the awesome feedback. Rather than one-at-a-time-ing things, here's some responses!

1. Font sucks? Feature, not a flaw.

2. Game crashes? Ummm... feature, not a flaw.

3. Need mouse to restart? Nope, there aren't any real buttons in the game. Just press space.

4. Did you credit original? Err, no.. it's got the original copyright on the title screen, but I'll add a note to point out I stole the gfx.

5. How did you steal the gfx? I just copied out the sprite atlas inside the iPhone app and cut it up in javascript/canvas. I tried to recreate things as closely as possible (screen transitions etc, not physics!).

6. Hey, do you make other awesome games in your free time? Why yes! just check out the blog at http://www.mrspeaker.net!

sillysaurus23• 12 years ago

Kids who are learning to type probably won't be able to read your font. They'll likely get frustrated and put it down rather quickly. Is it meant to be a typing tutor for kids?

robmcm• 12 years ago

I think it's a rather fun PR stunt, don't get too hung up on how useful it actually is ;)

mrspeaker4• 12 years ago

Didn't think I'd need to explicitly write this one, but...

7. Is this stupid thing supposed to improve my typing? No.

TheSOB8882• 12 years ago

This is pretty cool! I see you've written a JS game lib called Ω, but I can't find any more info about it. Is it not public yet? You seemed to have solved the problem of using sounds in JS, which is something I am very interested in.

mrspeaker4• 12 years ago

Hey - yeah, "Ω500" https://github.com/mrspeaker/Omega500/ is the name for my library/engine thing that I use for game jams. I just wrote it because you have to publicly release any code you use for Ludum Dare before each competition. Several Ludum-Dares later and it's getting pretty good (for me, anyway! I made this game in about 8 hours over the weekend). Though the audio support is very very straight-forward: it's not tough at all if you're only targeting modern browsers.

All the code for the game is in the /ex directory: https://github.com/mrspeaker/Omega500/tree/master/ex/flapjam

If you're looking for a more mature library I'd look at Pixi.js for pure rendering awesomeness, or Impact.js for a great full-fledged engine.

kosei• 12 years ago

"Feature, not a flaw" is one of my favorite responses to bug feedback too. :)

potato• 12 years ago

Is it just me or is the recorded score incorrect? Pretty sure I scored 8 but it shows 9. Then again I haven't played the original so maybe I'm missing something :p

isaacb• 12 years ago

Oh man, this was amazing. I just starting giggling and broke out into full out hearty laughter because it was so fun. I couldn't play more than 30 seconds, mind you, because it was infuriatingly difficult, but amazing nonetheless.

ritonlajoie• 12 years ago

I'm sorry but.. what should I do ? which key will work ? because I tried azerty, qwerty, space bar, up arrow key, nothing works..

imdsm• 12 years ago

The V looks like a U, but it is V. Feature, not a flaw?

kzrdude• 12 years ago

Type the text displayed at the top.

abvdasker• 12 years ago

Right, because Flappy Bird wasn't already punishingly difficult.

nej• 12 years ago

My thoughts exactly.

nicpottier• 12 years ago

Hilarious, but oh my god impossible!

guardian5x• 12 years ago

Great game. What are your highscores so far? http://i.imgur.com/8jGJatE.jpg

devonbleak• 12 years ago

I got to 12 and have to get some work done :-P

pattle• 12 years ago

My best score is 0!

atom-morgan• 12 years ago

Maybe it's just me, but I find this to be a much more enjoyable game than the original Flappy Bird.

tkfx• 12 years ago

found a bug: /dev/game/flappy/ should be /devil/game/flappy

Gracana• 12 years ago

Holy crap, that is difficult.

dhiraj026• 12 years ago

It is really irritating when you can't score despite trying hard :(

Aardwolf• 12 years ago

I think that more time has been devoted to writing articles about Flappy Bird, than went into creating Flappy Bird.

izzydata• 12 years ago

Do I seriously have to type slower to make it between things? This is awful.

I'm sure most experienced typers use muscle memory to type words quickly. This entire game is counter intuitive and unproductive for teaching typing since it forces you to think about typing letter for letter and not word for word.

An interesting and difficult game maybe, but it is almost useless as a typing tutor.

exDM69• 12 years ago

Do I seriously have to type slower to make it between things? This is awful.

I found out the complete opposite. I'm a pretty fast typist but I learned touch typing at a rather late age, at around 26 or so. I still don't have a perfect technique but I have not really practiced it either.

Typing slowly pinpointed several flaws in my technique, some which I wasn't aware of. I already knew that using the "y" key with the wrong hand, but playing this game for some minutes also pointed out that I use the wrong hand or finger. For example I noticed that I use my index finger to type out x and c (rather than my ring and middle fingers).

I thoroughly enjoyed this and found it helpful.

igorgue• 12 years ago

Typpy Bird would be a better name :)

chimmychonga• 12 years ago

this is a new kind of torture.

microcolonel• 12 years ago

This is next to impossible to play for a strong typist, and bad practice for a budding typist, not to mention the game was already frustrating enough when you didn't have to distinguish that V from that U in a word you haven't seen in a book for years, now it's just not fun.

pratkar• 12 years ago

Would love to see a game tougher than this!

nettletea• 12 years ago

Imitation aside, the novel thing about this adaptation, is that it practices your typing pace and control. Other typing games focus more on raw speed. Some tutors report/measure your typing rate (Klavaro - fluidity, Amphetype - viscosity). This might some otherway. Though it's doing my shoulder in.

ryan-allen• 12 years ago

Haha, this is awesome. Mr Speaker, you rock.

johnwalker• 12 years ago

This is great practice for texting and driving !

mikeleeorg• 12 years ago

Cute game! Took me a while to realize I had to type in the word at the top of the screen though. I banged on my keyboard for a good long while before accidentally hitting the right letter and noticing that it had turned red. Perhaps a little hint or tip could help n00bs like me.

TheSOB8882• 12 years ago

Same issue here. I thought I was supposed to press 1, or I, or l.

taopao• 12 years ago

Huh? Typing tutors should encourage speed, not rhythm. I should be rewarded for speed and accuracy.

mesozoic• 12 years ago

And I thought flappy bird was hard itself. This is pretty cool.

lliiffee• 12 years ago

Doesn't seem to work in firefox? (The search bar keeps getting activated.) I think I have the "automatically search on typing" option selected though.

aabalkan• 12 years ago

Wow is the js game code open sourced somewhere?

tarblog2• 12 years ago

This is awful. Purely awful.

BorisMelnik• 12 years ago

Ridiculously hard. Decent concept. Font really hard to read, especially V's and U's.

chid2013• 12 years ago

This is a funny rendition of the Flappy Bird game, you took a frustrating game and made it impossible. It serves as a nice memorial to the now-late game, which is pretty cool!

bylygbashi• 12 years ago

Record

Flappy Bird Typing Tutor

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