I’ve been a gamer my entire life, but it wasn’t until recently that I stumbled into the world of typing games. Even though I write for a living, I’d never really considered using video games as a way to improve my typing. However, I quickly discovered that typing games sharpen your skills in a way that’s surprisingly effective and hard to replicate elsewhere.

Typing Practice That Doesn’t Feel Like Work

Traditionally, learning to type isn’t the most exciting task. Most of us pick it up out of necessity, with varying levels of proficiency. But with typing games, typing becomes part of the action; it’s integrated into gameplay in a way that feels fun and rewarding instead of like a chore.

Educational games, including typing games, are nothing new. They’ve been around since the early 1980s, and even major franchises like Mario and Pokémon have taken a swing at them.

Today’s modern typing games take it a step further, though. They pull you so deeply into the gameplay that you forget you’re improving your speed and precision along the way. What’s more, the need to explicitly teach people how to type isn’t as urgent as it once was, so developers can now blend typing with other genres to create unique experiences that revolve around typing, rather than just serving as “edutainment.”

Improve Your WPM Without Even Noticing

The best example of this might be Glyphica: Typing Survival. The game’s slogan is literally “weaponize your WPM,” and it declares your keyboard as your weapon of choice.

In Glyphica, the faster you type, the further you progress. Interestingly enough, it’s also a roguelite. Each run is different, and you’re always unlocking permanent upgrades. Most runs only take 10 to 20 minutes, making it perfect for quick sessions, but also easy to fall into that “just one more game” loop. Before you know it, your typing speed and accuracy have noticeably improved.

Pressure plays a role, too. Plenty of games (including Glyphica) make typing skill the difference between life and death. Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun – Words of Vengeance exemplifies this. It’s a fast-paced, first-person rail shooter where you don’t aim or shoot with a mouse. Instead, you destroy enemies by typing randomized words and phrases pulled from Warhammer lore. A typo or slow fingers could leave you overrun by daemons. But as they say: pressure makes diamonds, or in this case, better typists.

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun

Released

May 23, 2023

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Violence

Developer(s)

Auroch Digital

Publisher(s)

Focus Entertainment

Compete, Cooperate, and Type to Win

If you’re like me, nothing fuels you like some friendly competition. Conveniently, some typing games feature multiplayer modes, adding a whole new layer of motivation. Whether you’re trying to carry the team, avoid being the first to go down, or simply one-up your friends, competition pushes you to your limits.

There’s probably no better example of this than Blood Typers. It puts you and up to three other friends into a survival horror adventure unlike anything else on the market. You’ll explore massive, procedurally-generated levels while zombies and other terrifying creatures try to tear you apart—and you’ll do it all using only your keyboard.

This game will challenge even the fastest typers. And as we touched on earlier, you might not be as good as you think when monsters are charging straight at you. To survive and advance, you’ll need to cooperate with teammates, aided by built-in proximity chat.

Maybe you’re not the best at shooters in your friend group, but you’re great at typing. Blood Typers lets you be the hero—the one carrying your friends to victory. And if there’s another strong typer in your squad, you can go toe-to-toe to see who lasts the longest. Even if you don’t like typing at all, Blood Typers is such a distinctive experience that you’ll probably still have a fantastic time. I can say from personal experience that by the end of it, your skills will definitely have leveled up.

Expand Your Vocabulary While You Play

One underrated perk of typing games is how they subtly expand your vocabulary. It never hurts to know more words, and if you’re someone who types a lot, you’ll be glad to have a few more in your mental toolbox.

Let me shout out another game here: Cryptmaster. Like Blood Typers, I’d be willing to bet you’ve never played anything quite like it. While some parts require fast, error-free typing, the core gameplay feels more like Wordle. Your words control everything. You can type whatever you want, and most encounters have multiple valid solutions. You’ll do a lot of guessing, experimenting, and thinking creatively, and unless you’re a dictionary, you’ll walk away with a bigger vocabulary than you had going in.

Cryptmaster

Systems

Released

May 9, 2024

ESRB

m

Publisher(s)

Akupara Games

Everyone learns differently, so just because typing games turned out to be the perfect tool for improving my own skills doesn’t mean they’ll work for everyone. That said, no matter where you’re at—novice or expert—I genuinely believe they’re worth a shot.

Typing games turn the mundane act of typing into something fun. They motivate you to keep going in ways traditional methods don’t, and they help you improve naturally, often without even realizing it. There was nothing like this when I was growing up, but now that there is, I can’t think of a more enjoyable way to practice typing.

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