Review: Typing Maniac - The Facebook Typing Phenomena Comes To iOS
by Staff Writer
February 22, 2011
There’s nothing quite like testing our typing chops. Since Mavis Beacon taught us typing there has been a special allure of the mix of typing and games. Typing Maniac gained mass popularity as a Facebook game. Now it comes to iOS to test your two thumb typing.
The game begins with words falling from the sky. You need to type the words out in order before they reach the bottom of the screen. That’s not much of a distance to fall, with the keyboard taking up half of the screen. You need to fill the green bar with successfully typed words to complete each level.
When you miss words they pile up on your desk. If the pile reaches the boiling point it’s game over. The good thing is that the pile clears out when you complete a level. That way you don’t pick up on the brink in the next level.
There are four power-ups included that you earn by typing out special words. They allow you to burn, freeze, or slow down all the words or clear out the unfinished stack. The difficulty amps up quickly from level to level, soon there will be longer words that drop at a much faster pace.
Accuracy is the key to high scores, and it will surely decline a few levels in. You can only type so fast with two thumbs compared to a full sized keyboard. The words start falling so fast that you can’t look at the keyboard very often. You need to just type, and keep looking at the next word. The typing becomes very tough because of the complexity of the words. There are a lot of words that are far from ordinary.
There’s barely a breather between rounds. This is typing at its fastest, and one of the more fast-paced games in the App store. You will need to have your thumbs flying around maniacally to keep up. The game recognizes your taps very well with a custom keyboard. Therefore, mistakes won’t be because the game doesn’t recognize your input properly. The words are different every time you play for nice variability.
The power-ups are absolutely essential for any long term survival. Even with them it’s an extreme challenge. The game uses Game Center for online high scores to show off your typing prowess. The art style is finely polished with retina quality graphics.
Typing Maniac (iPhone, $0.99) is a great game for typing fans. If you can type well on your iPhone/iPod Touch it’s a wonderful challenge. The game is extremely responsive even while being fast paced. It’s worth considering for $0.99 depending on how much you like typing.
You can check out the Facebook version too.
