Earlier this year we got our first look at Typoman .
. The game promised a unique experience as both a puzzler and a platformer. Given that we’ve seen our fair share of platformers on the Wii U, it’s quite a challenge to find one that can distinguish itself enough to create its own identity. To my satisfaction Typoman succeeded in this regard, dropping players in a dark world filled with letters that can be used to solve puzzles. But as a whole how does the game stand up? Let’s take a closer look.
From the moment you load Typoman , the game presents itself with a dark, grey atmosphere highlighted by the slow eerie background music. There aren’t any cut scenes or dialogue to really explain what the story is about, but the tones of the environment work fairly well to communicate a sense of what’s going on. From what I’ve gathered, you’re basically out to fight an evil being. Why? That’s never really explained.
On the topic of presentation the game fares very well at presenting a dark and lonely world with beautiful artwork and a diverse soundtrack. I never found the music annoying or repetitive, in fact I barely noticed it, which for this game work perfectly as being subtle. In fact you can listen to the game’s soundtrack over here.
You’ll start off as a simple letter “O” being dumped in what appears to be some letter wasteland. Soon after you’ll assemble yourself a body which will allow you to jump or push, pull and pick up letters. The controls are very straightforward and limited which for a puzzle platformer is fine. My main complaint is I kept wishing for the ability to jump while holding a letter to feel a bit more mobile. Many of the game’s puzzles depend on you controlling Typoman to move letters around and form words. This concept is great on paper but with the limited controls it can get very tedious to spell a 5 or 6 letter word by throwing one letter at a time around. It’s even more aggravating when you have to race against time to form a word. (Please see note at the bottom of this review regarding this)
Some examples of how the puzzle mechanic works would be by pushing letters together to form the word “ON” to turn on local machines or form the word “LIFE” to create a protective bubble. In terms of difficulty the game’s puzzles get very challenging. Some puzzles are extremely subtle and I would not have figured them out if it wasn’t for the tips offered on the GamePad screen. Speaking of which, the hint system is wonderful. If you’re stuck on a puzzle you can tap the question mark on the GamePad screen and get a riddle to help you solve the puzzle. If you need more help, you push the question mark again and the word that you need to spell will be highlighted. It’s a nice touch and removes frustration from some areas that would otherwise have caused some to rage quit.
Aside the puzzle challenges there are also some platforming and enemies to overcome. This is where I feel the game loses some points. Either be a challenging platformer, or a challenging puzzler, not both as it requires two separate sets of skills. Some will argue that this is a good combination and should be encouraged but I feel it alienates more players than anything else. Let me explain with the following example. A friend of mine who loves word puzzles was really drawn to the game when watching me play and wanted to try it out. They were great at solving puzzles but then the game randomly demands high precision platforming skills and quick reflexes which even a platforming veteran like myself had difficulties matching. My friend would never be able to overcome these segments without some help and it’s not like the game offers a gradual difficulty curve for them to work through and improve.
The difficulty curve is another problem I had with the game. I found myself dying dozens of time due to cheap deaths which can’t be avoided unless you know what’s to come. The frustration is minimized thanks to the abundance of checkpoints but often times when you die it feels like a cheap shot to the player without it being their fault. This problem is further highlighted in the game’s final boss. There is no way a player can study the bosses movement without dying. The only way to learn the bosses pattern and defeat them is by dying to each attack and then learning the counter move. It’s frustrating and poor boss design but again this is mitigated with check points.
In closing, Typoman does offer a fresh idea and experience to the puzzle-platforming genre. It succeeds in striking a dark, cold and lonely atmosphere that even made me feel uncomfortable at times thanks to its visuals and audio. Players who love puzzles will be rewarded with stimulating and fulfilling challenges but may struggle with the sections that demand high precision platforming and timing. With a bit more polish to the difficulty curve, cheap deaths and controls I would love to see Typoman return in another adventure.
Note
After publishing this review, I learned that it is not required to actually manually push/pull letters to form words thanks to the scrambler functionality on the GamePad. When Typoman is near a word, you can push “x” to bring up the scrambler and spell the word out on the GamePad. This does remove a lot of the tediousness I struggled with in the game. However this review score will not be changed as the game did not make this feature clear enough to the player at the time of review.
Written by Jason Lepine
Jason’s professional and cool-headed style masks what’s really going on inside. His ridiculous work intensity will drive him to spend 12 hours perfecting a video if need be.
This guy’s probably a notch away from exploding.
Pros: Wonderful atmosphere Challenging puzzles Clever puzzle mechanic
Cons: Cheap deaths Poor boss design Tedious gameplay
Final Score: 7 / 10
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