Andy O’Flaherty reviews Typoman Revised…
Isn’t it so annoying when you are trying to watch an episode of Countdown whilst simultaneously playing a dark and moody platform game? Well, thanks to the folk over at Brainseed Factory you can now do both! Welcome to Typoman.
Originally released for the Wii-U in 2015, Typoman at its core is all about creating words from various sets of letters to solve puzzles and defeat enemies. You play the titular hero (who himself is made up of the letters H E R O) as he embarks on a quest to navigate the increasingly hostile world he finds himself in. The environment is full of puzzles and traps that our hero needs to overcome, and he does this usually by organising the letters he finds scattered about the place into words which can then alter the environment in some way.
Graphically the game is excellent, seemingly taking inspiration from the likes of Limbo and Machinarium. Typoman himself is well animated, and the environments have a gritty steampunk vibe to them that serve the moody hostile atmosphere well. Much of the gameworld is made up of letters, with ladders being made of a series of H’s, garbage piles being random collections of letters, and many pieces of machinery that are made up of the letters that describe their function. Enemies are also made up of words (such as HATE and FEAR) and appear sporadically to increase the urgency and tension.
The sound design, although not particularly memorable, complements the moody atmosphere well with subdued musical cues and creepy soundscapes that increases with urgency along with any danger.
In terms of gameplay Typoman is a fairly standard platforming affair, feeling very similar to other 2D style platformers built-in the Unity game engine. The game keeps things simple, giving the players buttons to jump, interact and pick up objects. There are enemies in the game, but there is no way to fight them directly – instead you must either use the environment, or create ‘good’ words to keep them at bay. This is an intriguing mechanic – forcing the player to think and act quickly – using the letter generators scattered about to create words to help you while under stress. A single hit from an aggressor can kill Typoman… in fact a single hit from just about anything can kill Typoman, but thankfully the game is fairly generous with regards to its checkpoint system, meaning replaying chunks of the game after failure doesn’t really occur.
I really wanted to like Typoman – it has some excellent ideas and is genuinely unique in a lot of ways, however there are a few flaws that stop it achieving greatness. For starters, the controls feel a little floaty and imprecise at times. I lost count of the number of times I would climb to the top of a ladder… only to be unable to jump off it. In fact the whole climbing mechanics in general feel a bit broken – while grabbing on to the edge of a ledge I found I couldn’t climb up onto the platform if I was using the d-pad… but could if using the analog stick. Moving letters around feels a bit cumbersome, which isn’t too bad early on but once enemies are breathing down your neck it quickly becomes a problem.
All of the above issues could be quite easily fixed with patches I should imagine. What cannot be fixed by patches however, is the fact that the game… isn’t really that much fun. As a concept the game is interesting and aesthetically it is excellent, but I wouldn’t exactly call my time with Typoman enjoyable. The fact that the mini-games that are unlocked upon completing the game are infinitely more entertaining than the actual game itself says it all. On the plus side, unlocking said mini-games shouldn’t take too long as the game is incredibly short…
In conclusion Typoman is a unique and great looking platformer that has big ideas, but needs to remember that games should be entertaining. Perhaps it should put that in its word generator and see what comes out….
Pros:
+ Looks great
+ Excellent concept
+ Unlockable mini-games are enjoyable…
Cons:
– ….sadly the game itself is not
– Cumbersome controls
– Very short
Rating: 7/10
Typoman Revised is available now on Steam, XBox Live and PSN. PlayStation 4 version played for this review.
Andy O’Flaherty
Originally published March 2, 2017. Updated April 15, 2018.
