_keyboardkommander
A downloadable typing tutor for Windows
Winner of "Player’s Choice Award" iFEST 2019
Winner of "Audience Choice: Best In Show" RPI Gamefest 2015
Exhibitor at Seattle Indies Expo 2018 (They don't do awards)
_keyboardkommander is a fast-paced typing game that brings a strategic edge to the Type-em up genre. Play through to discover an interesting narrative about humanities downfall at the hands addiction to social media. Are you ready to type like a bad@$$ and save humanity in the process? The future of grammatical correctness itself hangs in the balance.
You play as The Keyboard Kommander, defending your base each night from hordes of post-apocalyptic zombies . The better you type, the more coins you get to spend on better weapons and fort upgrades to build up your base. How many nights can you survive?
-Early Access Status Report-
Our game is fully playable and contains most of what will be in the finished game. Right now all menus are in the game and gameplay is complete though it still has some bugs we are working to resolve.
-Gameplay Mechanics-
The gameplay loop features the following mechanics:
1. Type the letter by a zombie to target that zombie instead of the one you are shooting. This cannot be done if you are in the middle of typing a word.
2. Type the word that appears by your targeted zombie to fire a projectile at a zombie. Each letter typed will result in a bullet being fired at the zombie. When you press space or enter at the end of typing a word a projectile will be fired.
3. Zombies will drop collectibles when they die. These can be picked up by typing punctuation or special characters on the keyboard.
4. Ammo for the three weapons can be picked up from dead zombies. If you have ammo for a weapon you can select it by hitting tab. Each of the three weapons has unique properties that can be upgraded.
5. The laser will do high damage and shoot through zombies.
6. The mortar will drop fire clouds that will do damage when zombies step into them.
7. The blaster will stun zombies for a long time and shoot through zombies.
8. Energy can be picked up. When you get enough energy you can perform a power move by typing the word "MIRACLE". This will decrease the health of all zombies to 0 and increase your health to 100%.
9. Health can be picked up which will repair your fort.
10. Upgrades for your fort and your weapons can be purchased from the upgrades screen.
11. You will unlock a journal for each level you complete. The journals can be viewed from the journals scene which shows up after each level.
Build Notes:
(Work in Progress experimental) Beta_WithNewUI - is an experimental build with a new UI, please let us know what you think.
Did you enjoy this game? Check out Punks 'n' Patriots:
Punks 'n' Patriots by keyboardkommander, Eva Khoury, minatums, BowmanBeric (itch.io)
Status | In development |
Platforms | Windows |
Rating | Rated 4.7 out of 5 stars (21 total ratings) |
Authors | keyboardkommander, cloudhero, Germlord, Chris Dougherty |
Genre | Shooter, Action, Educational, Strategy |
Made with | Unity |
Tags | Action RPG, Comedy, satire, Singleplayer, Typing, Zombies |
Average session | A few hours |
Languages | English |
Inputs | Keyboard, Mouse |
Links | Steam |
Download
Install instructions
Unzip the file and run the executable.
Development log
- Beta UpdateNov 16, 2020
- Alpha 3 UpdateSep 26, 2020
- Alpha Release - Keyboard KommanderJan 25, 2020
- Upcoming SPOOK-tober update!Oct 07, 2018
- Seattle Indies Expo Announcement!Aug 04, 2018
- Sound update 7/20/18Jul 20, 2018
- New update! (5/30/18)May 31, 2018
- This is the Keyboard KommanderMay 13, 2018
Comments
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Yeah, man. The new menus and UI look a lot better. Though, there's one that was a bit glitched out:
The bottom seems to be a bit cut off, and I can't see how much money I have.
The gun icons that drop seem different, unless I didn't notice them before. They look good. Now I just have to remember which is which. =)
You've done good work. It's a definite improvement.
A couple of questions:
Maybe a dumb question, but what does the "energy" do? I try to focus on picking up the coins, but don't know what the other one does.
Pertaining to progressing difficulty, are there bigger zombies or creatures with higher health? I'm sure I just haven't played enough, but I've mostly just been sticking with the rifle, and I speed up if I lag behind from trying to pick stuff up. Haven't seen a whole lot of need to use others except for the mortar for AoE.
I'm not sure what other feedback to give you at this point, or how far you are willing to go with it as a project. It needs more polishing, particularly with the menus. The actual game is pretty solid, imo. Maybe varying locations/backgrounds? Maybe some models of some sort to represent the upgrades just to flesh it out a bit? Maybe some mines or automated but destroyable defenses that you could lay down? Just spit-balling ideas.
I'll definitely keep it in my library. Good typing games can be hard to find. This one is pretty freaking fun.
Thanks for the screenshot. I can absolutely fix this. Can you tell me what display resolution your monitor is?
When you collect 100 energy you can use a special move which will lower the health of all zombies to 0 and raise your health to 100. From there they can all be killed in one hit.
As for difficulty, yes there are stronger zombies, they can appear at lower levels but will appear more frequently at higher levels.
Thanks for the comments on the menus. I will need to fix those up. They are still a work in progress.
1920x1080
So far, so good. It's quite engaging, fun, and gives me a nice workout and practice session. I play a few rounds then I'm done for a while, but can keep coming back to it. I'm not sure how many nights I've completed. Some where around ten, I suppose.
I can't say it's been very challenging. I think I've only taken damage once. Though, I am a fairly proficient typist. It seems to be gradually scaling up.
My only complaints are that the menus just look rather ugly, honestly. Big, clunky, seeming like they're in a resolution entirely too small for them. Also, the auto-save feature seems like it occurs when a might is completed, but I can't quit the game until I start the next night after I've purchased upgrades. Yet, upon continuing my progress later, I'm forced to repurchase my upgrades again before beginning. Unless I'm mistaken on that.
Neither are big issues. Most of the time I'm just pounding away, and can't even really tell what's going on, what I'm killing, etc., but it is quite satisfying. As far as typing games/tutors I've seen, I'd say you've got one of the best here. I believe the first I ever saw and played was "Type Trek".
What difficulty did you play on? What level did you get to?
This is really great feedback. I can try to action some of this.
I don't recall selecting a difficulty. Maybe I overlooked it. As I said, I'm probably somewhere around level 10. I'll hit it up for a few rounds later, and get back to you.
I think you are playing on the easiest difficulty.
Maybe if I fix up the menus a bit I should make difficulty selection more obvious.
Hehe. I was, indeed, playing the easiest difficulty. I didn't stop to read the tabs as they were filling out. I think I just assumed that they were save slots. I tried the hardest difficulty. It definitely made a difference.
It's a lot of fun, though, I have a hard time with telling what items are. The health, money, and guns are obvious enough, I think, but what's the electrical symbol? I'm not sure what else there may be as they're a bit difficult to distinguish, especially in a frantic situation like that. Maybe some kind of key legend or something that tells you what the items are as the level loads? Just an idea.
Alright, so I have some great feedback from you that I'm going to start actioning right now. Work has been really busy lately but hopefully, I can power through this in a few weekends.
1. Change the menus so that the player has to pick a difficulty to play on. Make this more clear so the player knows what they are doing and does not confound this with save slots.
2. Make the menus less ugly. I might have to dig up an asset pack for this.
3. Change how the autosave works. Consider a "saving game dialog".
4. Add a "Legend" to the upgrades screen that explains what each of the pickups does. This may have to be multiple pages and allow the player to flick through this.
Thank you so much for all of your feedback. And thank you for playing the game. I'll comment here once I fix all of these problems.
Hey, I fixed up the menus in the new experimental: Beta_WithNewUI.zip build. We still have a lot of work to do on the menus to make them look better, but I was wondering if you could check out what I just uploaded and give me some feedback. With the new framework we are using I can add a "tutorial" tab to explain some of the stuff you commented on.
I still need to get to your concerns about the font.
If you have time for it I recommend you try a harder difficulty. There's a lot more strategy involved on higher levels.
Just came across this, as a matter of fact. Softonic has it listed: https://en.softonic.com/top/pc-typing-games. I'll give it a go, and report back sometime soon.
Thanks. I appreciate it. I've worked really hard on this game with my team.
Hey, I put in some work on one of my old GGJ games:
https://keyboardkommander.itch.io/comrade-cosmonaut
If you have a chance feel free to look at this. Just don't hold it to the same quality standard because it's just a jamgame.
Does anyone want to leave a serious comment?
hahaha
It all began on April 20th, the day of my father's death. I still remember the last thing he said to me. He said, "WillFan420, my son, I'll teach you how to type on April 20th." I had been looking forward to that but when I heard what happened, I ran out of the house and as far away as I could. When I finally stopped, I took out my phone to use Google Maps and find my way home, but I couldn't figure out how to type in my address. I then tried to call my mother but I couldn't type in any numbers either. I was stuck in this foreign area with no way to type. I tried to get a job, but they all required typing skillz. The only job I could get was a cook at a kitchen. The problem with that though, was that I had to sign into work everyday by typing in my password. My password was "Ravioli Ravioli, give me the formuoli." I couldn't type that in, so I had to get other employees to do that for me, giving them my password. One night, my "friend", Rogers used my password to get into the building and steal all the money. The cops traced the crime back to me and I got put in jail. In jail, I got beat up everyday. People were calling my names like "writer," because I didn't know how to type. After 20 years in jail, I finally got out. I decided that since I couldn't get a job, I would just have to marry a rich woman. But then, I realized I was ugly so it was back to the drawing board. I decided that I was going to jump. I went into the tallest building I could find, snuck past the sleeping security guard, and made it to the elevator. It was then I realized that I couldn't press the button for the top floor on the elevator because it was too similar to a keyboard key. I didn't fell like taking the stairs so I went to turn myself into the security guard. He was sleeping and I saw that he had been playing a game called Keyboard Kommander ApoKeylypse on his computer. I tried to play it and it actually taught me how to type. I felt like my father was beside me the whole time even though it was just the security guard. After I finished learning how to type, I woke up the guard who then arrested me and took me to jail. While in jail, I got ripped and beat up all the people who made fun of me before. After another twenty years, I got out of jail. I then went up to the first lady I saw, showed her my typing skillz and now we are married. She also turned out to be rich so I didn't need to get a job. I then went back to my family and reunited with them because I could finally type my address into Google Maps. Keyboard commander not only changed my life, but saved it.
hahaha who wrote this hahahaha. The because I'm ugly and rich woman lines got me good hahah
i hope rogers wasnt a reference to me!