Keyboard Kingdom by kleinzach

[raw]
made by kleinzach for LD 41 (JAM)

Keyboard Kingdom is a mix between an educational typing game and a city builder. Besides the button to start the game, the game is all controlled by typing words. Underline words in the world will perform an action, such as gathering a resource or constructing a building. The game is over when you complete the castle, and you will be scored on time and words per minute. Let me know how you did!

The game was made in Unity, using TextMeshPro, ProBuilder, and Polybrush. (Which are all put out as free assets by unity themselves. I highly recommend them!) Music is procedural generated by Wolfram Tones, which is always fun to use.

This was a solo project, though models were created by me, a few of the textures and the sound effects are not created by me.

FAQ:

Q: What is the number that appears next to words in the farm? Whats the green/red bar next to the mining words?

A: After building a silo, farm words will be worth more if you complete them before they run out of time. The mine also has a bar, and if you submit a word while the circle is in the green area you will get up to 4 more resources.

Ratings

Overall 158th 3.92⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 310th 3.6⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 130th 3.94⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 84th 4.28⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 358th 3.84⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 262th 3.587⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 775th 2.553⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 314th 3.609⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 32🗨️

Feedback

DeltaNutmeg
24. Apr 2018 · 00:35 UTC
I got up to nearly creating the castle! Very good and unique concept, fresh gameplay. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have some sort of upgrade for the mine and the farm so that you get multiple on each word, so that you don't need to mindlessly grind away?
🎤 kleinzach
24. Apr 2018 · 02:43 UTC
@DeltaNutmeg That is actually in the game! The silo and mine carts help with that.
DeltaNutmeg
24. Apr 2018 · 03:47 UTC
Ah, I'm sorry for not realizing those! Good design, then.
okacat
24. Apr 2018 · 06:12 UTC
Very cool idea! Seeing the words and typing them has a very nice meditative quality to it. Like the graphics and the audio too, it all fits together well! I was stuck at "rye" for a bit because I thought it said "rue", but that is just my lack of sleep.
heyycap
24. Apr 2018 · 06:19 UTC
13 min 19 seconds, about 41 WPM. Looks very nice. Great work!
LarrySeinfeld
24. Apr 2018 · 07:17 UTC
14m11s, 26wpm... I need to play this more because I clearly need to get better at typing.

Great, addictive game! that drive to get the castle is strong! I loved the timing mechanics that are introduced later in the game. Fun game!
🎤 kleinzach
24. Apr 2018 · 15:15 UTC
@okacat Rye vs. rue is totally on me! I could probably have chosen some better fonts looking back on it now. It's sometimes hard to realize if something is a problem when working with it non-stop for 2 days. I'm noticing that I am starting to have a bit of a problem with the font used for building.
Oxygenium
25. Apr 2018 · 14:42 UTC
Fun game! In the future you can add a translated words in the other languages next to English words (maybe using the Google API?) for people who want to learn better English language ;).
🎤 kleinzach
25. Apr 2018 · 15:28 UTC
@Oxygenium great suggestion. The words themselves are all chosen from a text file which should make it very doable to allow for other languages. I was originally going to use a similar system for difficulty, where I pull from different dictionaries based on settings.
pickledbrain
26. Apr 2018 · 01:41 UTC
Transubstantiation...really? lol Solid entry. It's a bit addictive actually. It's so easy to just type another word and see what happens, you kick into a flow state (like playing bejeweled or tetris). Very neat. To expand upon it I'd love to see an attack or some military action and more choices.
nicksmaddog
26. Apr 2018 · 01:42 UTC
Got it in 9 minutes 56 seconds. Pretty fun concept! I like that the bonuses for the farm and mine allow for you to go back and forth typing between them, while still having type to get their bonus.
ketura
26. Apr 2018 · 01:46 UTC
This is spectacular! *This* sort of thing is what we need more of in educational contexts, something that drills a skill while still being at its heart a *game*. I loved the little choices you had to make, I was pleasantly surprised that the mine and farm had *different* upgraded bonuses when I was expecting a lazy copy-paste, and the words themselves were all appropriately thematic. The graphics and audio were well done: crisp, clear, and easy on the eyes/ears. The only thing I was missing while playing was medium term management of the different resources, like if the combo for the farm took like 60 seconds to cool down then I'd be incentivized to farm while building, for example.

Amazing job tho, 4's and 5's where it counts. This should seriously be considered for fleshing out into an actual commercial title aimed at kids.
🎤 kleinzach
26. Apr 2018 · 01:51 UTC
@pickledbrain Yeah, military actions and defending against attackers is high up on my list of next steps when I come back to the game! Also, always looking for new words to add, that was a friend's suggestion and more variety in the dictionaries certainly helps the game!

@nicksmaddog Great time! And yeah, having both the farm and mine bonuses active at once was the idea behind those mechanics. I'm trying to come up with another which could fit well with those combo and timing mini games.
CrazyHomeboys
26. Apr 2018 · 02:09 UTC
JUST WOAH! my congrats for real, very interesting and so addictive. The art fits so well and the music is pretty good. Maybe my wrist need a long rest because right now I cant even write anymore 🤣
PD: GAME OVER and I wasted 12 min playing your game 🤣🤣 I dont know if 33 words per minute are good or not.

![Keyboard Kingdom Maxnatale.jpg](///raw/a09/41/z/14165.jpg)
🎤 kleinzach
26. Apr 2018 · 02:54 UTC
@CrazyHomeboys Haha, yeah, GAME OVER might not be the best end screen now that I think about it. You actually won!
Shivur
27. Apr 2018 · 04:28 UTC
very relaxing game
Matt Pattabhi
27. Apr 2018 · 04:29 UTC
Good job! This game keeps you reeled, I enjoyed this alot!
BlueMirror
27. Apr 2018 · 07:34 UTC
What a beautiful combination a great idea you had! Well executed as well!

What I would have liked to see, would be how much I made of something (after typing a word, next to the word comes a (+1) or later (+x)), that would be some nice feedback especially on the ore later on. This reminded me a lot of a "epistory typing chronicles" which I loved to play. Its a really good game and it has typing as the foundation so maybe give it a try, if you plan to work more on this!


The biggest difference of your and their game is the pacing. In Epistory you walk around and type stuff every now and then (slow pace). Then there are spots, at which you will stand still while enemies come at you from everywhere and your only weapon is to type the words over their heads. These parts are kinda like boss fights and they are really fast paced, nerve wracking and beautiful.

So in your game, maybe instead of just building the things you paid for, you get a timer for them. If you fail you dont loose the resources, but to finish a building you actually have to beat the timer of every word. That would have been a nice change of pacing without having to add a lot.


Apart from those things you could add to the game, the things you did in the game were awesome! Good job and good luck in the future with this game, since Im sure you will want to keep on working on it!
Cheers
kr4ft3r
27. Apr 2018 · 19:03 UTC
16 min 25 secs, 30.54934 wpm. Great blend. I like how words get more complex but are also related to what is going on, it is as if you are typing what people on the site were buzzing about on that day.
Daveroony
28. Apr 2018 · 05:27 UTC
haha buttress
Escape
28. Apr 2018 · 05:56 UTC
11min 35sec @ 38.10377 wpm. Wow what an awesome idea for combining game genres. This was actually a lot of fun and the music and art was nice and relaxing. I didn't even notice that 11 minutes had gone by. I like that the words are relevant to the action you're performing. Nice work! :)
PandaCultist
28. Apr 2018 · 07:30 UTC
Very well done! I love seeing myself progress through the game, the oonly thing i have to say would be to change the underline on the text because it is hard to tell if it is a g
stark
28. Apr 2018 · 08:12 UTC
Very pleasing graphics and very good theme idea!