Post your favorite apps or websites for testing typing speed and accuracy. When you’re bored of that, brag about your wpm on different boards. I’ll start.
Pro: compete with other users in real time, track stats as a registered user
Pro: analysis with mistakes and speed by segment (like Strava for typing)
Pro: get songs stuck in your head (possibly a con)
Pro: discover new authors and passages you haven’t seen before
Con: the site has ads that load randomly and jank the page distractingly
Con: the overall design is old and meh
My score on my Modern Model F77 was 64 wpm. Clearly I need to practice. I’m gonna blame it on my laggy spacebar (sometimes transposes with the next key) and adjusting to the position of the HHKB-style backspace XD
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What are your favorites? Does anyone remember Mavis Beacon, and the 8 and 16-bit “games” where you’d shoot down letters or collect them. Memories…
These days I probably just spend the most time on Monkeytype, though I’ll always appreciate the simplicity of typings.gg.
Before I discovered either of those, though, I spent a good bit of my leisurely typing time on Nitro Type, which is a similar format to Typeracer; live competition and stuff like that. It’s sort of like a car version of the carnival game with race horses and water guns - except instead of water guns, you’ve got a keyboard.
If you’d like something more on the creative side that also happens to include a typing test mode, take a look at Keyboard Simulator - you can design a keyset colorway and then test it out!
Nitro Type:
Pro: compete with other users in real time, track stats as a registered user
Pro: it’s got cars!
Pro: gamified; earn new cars, paint jobs, user flair, etc.
Pro: social features like achievements and friends
Con: Very “mobile gamey” in that it asks you for money
Con: I mean it asks you for money constantly
Con: Maybe a bit busy visually speaking
typings.gg:
Pro: about as simple as it could be
Pro: no distractions, no ads, just typing - very “pick up and play”
Pro: multiple modes / options for what you type
Pro: a nice list of color themes to choose from (not updated in a long time though)
Con: no record-keeping / stats / etc.
Monkeytype:
Pro: detailed record keeping and some analysis; it’s got graphs!
Pro: lots of options & customization in terms of both function and appearance
Pro: lots of options for the typing content
Pro: tons of color themes; regularly updated
Con: literally my only complaint is that their merch is a bit overpriced
Honorable Mention: Keyboard Simulator:
Geared more towards colorway theory-crafting, but will technically respond when you type, animating the on-screen 3D keyboard to match and does include a typing test mode
Pro: it’s fancy! 3D graphics and completely customizable colors, and with plenty of layouts built-in
Pro: it’s fun to mess around with
Con: no record keeping / score tracking / etc. (more of a visual design tool than a typing test site)
Yes!
I remember Mavis Beacon, Math Blaster, Mario Teaches Typing… and some reading comprehension game involving robots and a mad scientist. I had a pretty decent little collection of edutainment games on my DOS / Windows 95 machine.
If you’re into edutainment nostalgia and somehow aren’t already aware of the YouTube channel LGR, he has a whole series on the subject:
I mostly use Monkeytype purely because of the customization. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so I want the theme to be suited to whichever board I plug in.
Oh, and its UI is also great. I also love the keymap visualizer, it’s a great tool to learn other layouts and aside from that’s a neat addition. Feels much more refined than Typeracer.
Apart from that, when I want to have real fun, I go to https://jklm.fun/ and start a bombparty. It’s incredibly entertaining and actually requires creative thinking instead of just typing fast. Definitely recommend trying it out if you want something other than just typing some words.
It’s not the best tool for improvement but the idea of taking an arcade shooter and turning it into a typing game is just so fun. The cutscenes showing the characters hauling around keyboards attached to Dreamcast backpacks are hilarious.
@djmantis There is a version on Steam, Typing of The Dead: Overkill which I think is a sequel - but the original is actually abandonware, and you can get it free for Windows here:
