VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

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Which is your favorite VIC typing game?

Character Assassination
0
No votes
Mastertype
2
50%
Speedtype
0
No votes
Type Attack
2
50%
Typer
0
No votes
Word Invaders
0
No votes
Other (please explain in a post)
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 4

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akator
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VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by akator »

Touch typing was around long before computers (1880 according to Wikipedia), yet it was often considered a specialized and even gender specific professional skill. Demand for touch typing skills grew with the spread and popularity of word processors and personal computers.

A plethora of educational typing software and games for personal computers made it easier, faster, and cheaper to learn touch typing without formal classes or training. With its full sized mechanical keyboard and reasonable price, the VIC was undeniably part of this typing revolution.

Character Assassination
Mastertype.png
Mastertype.png (2.86 KiB) Viewed 2950 times
Character Assassination High Scores
1288 …… akator

Mastertype
Character Assassination.png
Character Assassination.png (1.48 KiB) Viewed 2950 times
Mastertype High Scores
14269 …… hasseapa

SpeedType
SpeedType.png
SpeedType.png (2.51 KiB) Viewed 2950 times
SpeedType Ratings
83 …… akator
80 …… hasseapa

Type Attack
Type Attack.png
Type Attack.png (2.74 KiB) Viewed 2950 times
Type Attack High Scores
27494 …… akator
13355 …… Ola H

Typer
Typer.png
Typer.png (3.35 KiB) Viewed 2886 times
Typer High Scores
259 …… akator

Word Invaders
Word Invaders.png
Word Invaders.png (1.67 KiB) Viewed 2950 times
Word Invaders High Scores
6195 …… hasseapa
2591 …… akator

All 6 games are included in the zip file. Mastertype and Type Attack are carts, SpeedType and Word Invaders are tapes, and Character Assassination and Typer are PRGs.
Vic Game Club 3 - Typing Games.zip
(119.77 KiB) Downloaded 94 times
As always, your posted scores will be added to this first post. Play, discuss, have fun! And remember:
hasseapa wrote:... posting in the old threads should be encouraged. Old players can update their score, new players can post scores, and anyone can leave comments on the games.
EDIT: Boray's Typer has been added.
Last edited by akator on Sun Jul 02, 2017 12:37 pm, edited 5 times in total.
hasseapa
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by hasseapa »

Heh, that's five games I would never have tried if it was not for this game club thing.

I promise to try them all :)
Boray
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by Boray »

PRG Starter - a VICE helper / Vic Software (Boray Gammon, SD2IEC music player, Vic Disk Menu, Tribbles, Mega Omega, How Many 8K etc.)
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akator
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by akator »

Super cool! It has been added :)
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akator
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by akator »

My scores/ratings on these games are much higher using emulation with a modern keyboard. Apparently I've gotten used to flat low-travel keyboards and the full-travel, stepped classic keyboards like the VIC are much more difficult now.

Has anyone else experienced this?
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Ola H
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by Ola H »

I have only been able to play these on emulation, but generally I have gotten used to modern flat keyboards. But it took me many years; I preferred the steeper Vic and C64 keyboards until the late 90s, and I still don't like completely flat laptop keyboards.

I can't get the two taps to work on Vice (no clue why) but I have tested the four other ones and was pleased to see that each used its own mechanics.

Typer is extremely clever for such a small game and plays very well. Type Attack suprised me with its attractive presentation and seems to offer sound lessons. But the one I'm most likely to return to is Broderbund's Mastertype as its lessons seem best structured to be truly educational.

My scores are abysmal as of yet, but of course they depend on the speed and level selections.
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akator
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by akator »

Ola H wrote:I can't get the two taps to work on Vice (no clue why) but I have tested the four other ones and was pleased to see that each used its own mechanics.
I've been using Boray's PRG Starter. It works for most of the TAP files I've tried.

My new best with Word Invaders, Difficulty A, Speed 1 is 2591 with 49.8 WPM. I'm sure someone can beat that, though :D
Word Invaders akator A1 2591..png
Word Invaders akator A1 2591..png (2.47 KiB) Viewed 2804 times
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Ola H
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by Ola H »

Thanks for the tip! PRG Starter is really neat, but I'm afraid I still have no luck with two TAP games here. I use the latest version of Vice. I don't remember having any problems with TAPs on the old version, but nowadays I just get the "Press Play On Tape" message, and File > Datasette Control > Start has no effect.

Anyways... I have played Mastertype some more and really like it. The progression through the lessons seem just right. I can see myself learning touch typing with it :)

Typing speed is actually one of very few skills in which I have made no progress since the age of 12. I got my Vic 20 when I was 11 and quickly became a much faster typer than all my class mates, but I bet many of them are faster than me nowadays.
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Ola H
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by Ola H »

Type Attack is seriously cool too and by far the most attractive of the four games I have tried.

When you have eliminated three Space Invaders levels with rows of single letters, a new game mode, where you have to use space to shoot words, appears. I didn't notice that in my earlier brief playthrough!
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akator
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by akator »

By the time I was in my early teens I could type 40 WPM without touch typing so I didn't see the need for it. I think it was all those late nights entering magazine listings :D

That changed when I got to college. I bought a touch typing tutor for my Mac Plus and it only took a few hours for me to switch over. I don't think I typed faster with touch, but it made it a lot easier to write those college papers. It also got me a job in data processing on the weekends which paid for beer :)

But I don't think touch typing matters much in the long run. My wife doesn't touch type and she has a much nicer job than I ever have :D
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akator
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by akator »

I like Type Attack as well. But I'm also a sucker for space shooter in general and the invaders theme. I got sucked into it earlier and scored 27494, but that was on easy settings. I'll have to try it again later with higher difficulty...

Mastertype and Type Attack are the stand outs, but I've had fun with the others as well. Typer and Speedtype are straightforward and solid. I love the City Bomber concept of Character Assassination but I wish it was more refined. It could be a really great game with some polish. Word Invaders is good but greatly overshadowed by Type Attack as they are similar in concept.
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Ola H
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by Ola H »

I played Type Attack again and got 13355 p. Not great ... and, still, I cheated by looking at the keys every now and then :oops:
I used Speed Setting 20 and started on lesson 1. But even though my touch typing skills are meager it made for a very long sessions, so I think a faster speed would make for a more enjoyable game.

But it is not a bad game, not at all, and it truly is educational. My appetite is whetted ... I want to learn touch typing even though I probably don't need it very much! (I guess I can manage about 40-50 words per minute by peaking and pecking). But it would feel great to improve on 12 year old me :D
hasseapa
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by hasseapa »

I haven't had much time this month but now I have finally tested all of them except Mastertype.

Some scores:

SpeedType: 80

Word Invaders: 6195.
Done in D-1 mode. It seems like the speed choice (1-4) does not influence your score, while key-difficulty (A-D) is absolutely crucial!

Character Assassination @ speed 9: 0 :mrgreen:
To improve on this one will really put the more educational titles (i.e. Mastertype and Type Attack) to test. Will try Mastertype tomorrow.
hasseapa
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Re: VIC Game Club No. 3 – Typing Games

Post by hasseapa »

I have tried Mastertype and it seems ambitious but the lessons took too much time and I decided to play it just for fun instead. That is, I played the last lesson/level and gave up on proper "touch typing". My score on the last lesson was 14269.

I have not voted yet. Type Attack and Mastertype are no doubt the most ambitious ones.

I learned touch typing while in the military service but at the tests I reverted to my self taught method (six fingers, mostly muscle memory based but dependent on the ocassional peek) as it was faster.

Since then I have never bothered with touch typing, but now I strongly consider to take it up again. Even if not faster, it will allow for more focused and relaxed typing. After a while I will no doubt become faster too.

Nowadays there is, of course, an endless supply of typing tutorials on the web, but I will return to these VIC-games instead :)
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