The Font Game Makes Typography Easy On The iPhone
The Font Game ($1.99) by Justin Stahl is a fun way to acquaint yourself with the world’s fonts, as well as a mountain of typography terminology.
It’s a difficult challenge, and the price is about a dollar too high, but if you’re a typist or designer of any kind you’ll find a lot to learn within The Font Game’s gorgeous packaging.
At its core, The Font Game has one goal, and one goal only: to teach you a lot about fonts, including the typeset terminology, as well as the actual sets themselves.
The game accomplishes this by presenting the user with a font, and then a list of choices. The user must choose the correct selection from the list, or face being handed a red mark. Each game comes with 30 fonts to guess at before the user is given a final verdict.
The best part of the game mechanic, however, isn’t the game itself, but viewing the end results. Users are free to review their responses, right or wrong, with learning kept as the focus. Each entry shows the chosen selection as compared to the correct one, creating plenty of potential to memorize type styles.
There’s also a terminology game setting, which will show 30 different illustrations and a list of terminologies used to describe the image, rather than 30 fonts. For instance, a highlighted section of a letter may need to be identified from a list of incorrect responses. It’s a great way to educate the user about typography in an engaging way.
The Font Game comes with a few extras, most notably Game Center integration. Users are rewarded for choosing fonts quickly, a process that’s translated into points, which are then posted to the global leader boards. It’s a competitive edge that, though The Font Game doesn’t necessarily need any more fleshing out, certainly does just that.
All in all, The Font Game is a great way to brush up on your font identifying skills, as well as your typography knowledge. If you’re a designer or typesetter, knowing the most common typesets inside and out is a vital skill that The Font Game will readily sharpen.
Even if you aren’t an industry professional, the app is still a great way to have fun while exploring some of the fonts you use in your word processor on a daily basis.
The Font Game is, in my humble reviewing opinion, priced a little high at $1.99 in the App Store. I felt the $0.99 sweet spot would have been more applicable. However, for the price of entry, users can enjoy one of the most fun and convenient ways to brush up on their typography skills.
