Epistory – Typing Chronicles
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Epistory is an atmospheric adventure typing game that tells the story of a writer lacking inspiration who asks her muse to help write her latest book. In Epistory you play the muse, a fictional character in a world where everything is untold. Your adventure begins on a blank page, but the world will soon become larger and livelier as you gather inspiration, solve its mysteries and defeat its enemies. From movement to opening chests and fighting in epic battles, every element in the game is controlled exclusively with the keyboard. As you progress and explore the fantasy origami world, the story literally unfolds in the writer’s mind and the mysteries of the magic power of the words are revealed.
Steam User 20
I would buy it on sale. I would say to be a fast typer is a must. If you ever peck at the keyboard this isn't for you. Also, it's not accessible for people with color blindness. But it's fun if you like typing games, little bits of puzzles. Can't play for too long in one go because then my hands ache from the typing.
Steam User 9
A lovely and fantastic typing game where you travel around exploring a diverse looking world. It supports just about any keyboard layout you might need (and you can also download more from the workshop in the off chance the game doesn't support in natively) and quite a few languages but sadly no Slovenian.
Only real annoying part is how grindy some achievements are but again you can help yourself with workshop mods if you care about them :)
Steam User 8
Props to Fishing Cactus for setting the groundwork for a solid typing tool and turning it into an actual video game that has plenty of heart and charm. It’s fun to see these kinds of things used creatively to explore what you can do with a game and how you can tell a story with it.
But Epistory can sometimes feel more like a proof of concept over a fully realized video game, which could leave some people feeling a little disappointed. I don’t necessarily think the overall smaller scope is a bad thing, especially considering how many games seem to be designed to take up as much of your time as possible. I think both the price point and tightness of design both accurately reflect the smaller scope too, which means you won’t be spending too much money, and there aren’t many fatty bits left on the game.
As the game’s store page description says, the story literally folds out in front of you. As you progress, paper tiles fill the area and turn into the environment around you. It might not be subtle, but there is something pleasing about watching the paper world form around you, something that’s helped by solid sound design and direction.
But one downside I found with how they present the story is that it can be rough (for me, anyway) to focus on the environment and the narration itself. The game encourages you to keep up your word combos, so when a new area unfolded in front of me, I would try to defeat enemies, plant trees, destroy logs, or type out any words that popped up on my screen to keep that combo going. Unfortunately, that meant if a bit of narration popped up, it didn’t get my full attention. The way the narration was told could have been paced differently to the environment and I think it would have made it just a little better.
It may have been because of that issue that I didn’t find myself grabbed by the story. It wasn’t bad, and I liked the little isolated story bits in each dungeon, but it just isn’t something that really sticks. It’s a shame, because the rest of the game is so colorful and fun to look at, but the game does feel the most “proof of concept” in its story.
That said, I really enjoyed the gameplay. It’s not overly complex. Words pop up above an enemy, you type the word, and the enemy either dies or has another word appear for you to type. As the game progresses, you get different elemental magic you can use. Those have their own effects and benefits on regular enemies, and some enemies can only be defeated using the matching magic. The magic can be used for a few simplistic puzzles that only barely get tougher toward the end of the game.
The biggest challenge in the gameplay comes from the nests (unfortunately, the achievement of completing all 24 of them is bugged for some people, including myself). The nests throw waves of enemies at you, some with extremely long words, so those are where the meat of the gameplay comes from. They’re all pretty fun, especially as you get upgrades, but the Spark magic is substantially better than the other magic for clearing them. It makes it a little imbalanced, but the other magic types do still have their uses.
There also was an issue where it seemed like my key inputs weren’t being registered properly. This wasn’t frequent, but it made clearing some of the more challenging nests a little harder than they probably should have. I have seen some people say that typing too fast can make the inputs a little off, but it was so inconsistent that I couldn’t say for sure what caused it.
Outside of those things, there really isn’t much to say. The game is kind of insubstantial, but it wasn’t trying to be a bloated mess either. It took me around 7 hours to beat most of the content. If you like typing, or want to improve your typing, this game will probably be right up your alley. If you don’t like typing, or get easily frustrated, it might not be for you. Although this game might help improve your ability to type or be a good way to apply some practice.
A few little annoyances aside, I’d recommend this game. It’s pretty relaxed and isn’t trying to be a lot more than a fun little typing game. You can sit back, enjoy the colorful world and its unique art direction, and refine your typing skills in a pretty solid experience that doesn't overstay its welcome.
Steam User 8
I recently picked up a split ergonomic keyboard and needed a fun way to get a typing refresher. Playing this game has been a great way to accomplish that. It teaches touch-typing in very fun and subtle ways. It also has adaptive difficulty which is a nice touch.
Steam User 10
I'm not playing a game. I'm just practicing typing.
타자연습 RPG버전
Steam User 6
Beatiful and unigue art style. This is very nice adventure game. It is fun to explore! Good practise for typing fast when there is big battles but game is not too hard. I need to try some battles few times before I beat them and it was fun. Different attack styles is interesting too and give some extra in how to play. Story is ok but I think I miss something in it.
Steam User 8
Huh? What's this? A typing game? Eeeeewww. Those are for losers and lame gamers, a dissertation which I have arrived at after playing that one other typing game in my life, uhhh, the one with the zombies. Genre aficionados will know the one I'm sure. That game was novel for all of about 10 minutes, after which it was nonceremoniously chucked into the 'zzzz nooo' category of my Steam library and forgotten about until this current moment.
And Epistory? What a dumb name. I scoffed at the title with an aura of smug arrogance that was so thick you could almost see it. The game was a bundle leftover that I came this close to giving away, but there was just something about those screenshots that made me try it. I was all like, I'll take a 5 minute look at this and then add it to all the other random stupid bundleware shit that I've accumulated over the years in the disappointingly large zzzz nooo designation of my library.
>goldblum.jpg
But wait! Waht a twist! I liked the game after all. I loved it in fact. Perhaps my couldn't have been lower expectations helped a little, but holy shit this is a fantastic little hidden gem. I do not hyperbolize when I say that this is one of the prettiest games I've ever played. It tells kind of a shitty story but with so much charm that I was thoroughly swept off my feet with my panties around my ankles. Until the end, where its like 'and it was all a dream' fuck I hate endings like that honestly thats the biggest load of bullshit ever uuugghh
The typing action is actually kinda thrilling and the different elemental magics really infuse the gameplay with an exciting mechanic. Like, spark element will deal some AOE but ice will momentarily freeze singular enemies etc etc, so pick carefully. But not too carefully because you're about to be killed. But also don't be overhasty because typos will cost valuable time. See what I mean? Yeah it's 'just' a typing game, but with STRESS and STRATEGY.
Epistory's flawlessly paced 6 hour runtime also contained some chill puzzles and exploration sections, before throwing you back into some adrenalin surging EXTREME TYPING ACTION.
I can't help but respect this game. It knows itself, it knows what it wants to do. It does it, and does it very well. And it does it for long enough to prove it isn't just a fluke or a brief frivolity, but not long enough to overstay its welcome.