Design Process
Conception
Iterations
It initially began with the idea of Typing being a mechanic. Not all too familiar with other typing games, we were mostly inspired by Typing Tutors for the early 2000's.
Looking into other games that inherently contained text as a mechanic, we quickly gravitated to a visual-novel setup. From there, we considered what would serve for strong visual feedback.
What we chose was a retro-shoujo manga style, as it is mostly unexplored given that visual novels were gaining popularity in the late 90's.
The game, throughout prototyping development, had 2 versions.
The first being more speed oriented, and the other being more accuracy oriented. What we found was that accuracy was far more punishing to players- as most players have a rhythm to their typing that they wish to follow, despite it creating more room for error.
What we did not expect was that Typing, as an action, is not nearly as universal as we had assumed. While most people do type in real life, it is accompanied with undoing their mistakes and auto-correct. This made adjusting the timer bar's total speed go through many iterations through playtest.
Takeaways
Response to the game is very varied, but there is definitely a target-audience that strongly enjoy the game. What it comes down to, is that while we can tweak the game to be playable for everyone, it ultimately makes it less intriguing for anyone.
Nothing about typing itself is particularly novel to any young adult, but the implications that it has and the auditory/visual gratification one gets from overcoming dire odds to win the Lady's heart (very tongue and cheek humor) is very powerful.
While this game can never be considered an accessible experience, it can still be a meaningful one for specific people.
