Valve’s latest festival, Steam Typing Fest, celebrates the art of the keystroke. From bullet-hell exorcisms to cozy letter writing, get ready to test your WPM starting February 5th.
For most PC gamers, the keyboard is simply a vessel for WASD movement, a panel of hotkeys for spells, or a way to type “GG” (or something less polite) in chat at the end of a match. But for a specific, passionate subsect of the gaming community, the keyboard is the game.
Valve has officially announced the Steam Typing Fest, a dedicated celebration of titles where your Words Per Minute (WPM) matters more than your aim assist. The event kicks off tomorrow, Thursday, February 5th, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific, and runs through the weekend until February 9th.
This isn’t your elementary school computer lab’s Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. The modern typing genre has evolved into a bizarre and wonderful landscape where you might be exorcising demons, navigating dungeons, or writing heartfelt letters to strangers—all powered by your ability to touch-type.
The Pen (and Keyboard) is Mightier Than the Sword
The Steam Typing Fest aims to highlight the incredible diversity within this niche genre. According to the official announcement from the “Steam Team,” the festival will explore the two distinct extremes of typing gameplay: the relaxing and the murderous.
“In this fest, typing can be relaxing (Cozy letter writers! Learning another language!) or straight-up murderous (Type to kill! Type to purge graveyards!),” the announcement reads. “You get the idea.”
This duality is what makes the genre so fascinating. On one end of the spectrum, you have the “Combat Typist.” These are games where typing speed equates to Damage Per Second (DPS). The faster and more accurately you type, the faster your character attacks.
The most famous progenitor of this style is, of course, The Typing of the Dead, where players famously strapped Dreamcasts to their chests and typed words like “BANANA” and “PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS” to blow the heads off zombies. Modern successors have taken this concept and run with it. Games like The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia combine typing with “bullet hell” dodging, requiring players to type Latin exorcisms with one hand while dodging projectiles with the other.
The “Type to purge graveyards” hint in Valve’s announcement suggests we might see discounts on gothic dungeon crawlers or similar spooky titles where undead enemies are dispatched with a single keystroke.
The Cozy Corner: ASMR and Epistolary Games
On the flip side of the festival is the “Cozy” contingent. In recent years, there has been a massive surge in games that use typing as a meditative mechanic.
Titles like Kind Words (lo-fi, chill beats to write to) turned typing into a communal therapy session, where players write anonymous letters of encouragement to real people while listening to relaxing music. The satisfying clack-clack-clack of a virtual keyboard, combined with the altruism of being kind to strangers, proved that typing doesn’t have to be stressful to be engaging.
Other games in this category focus on the beauty of language itself. Interactive fiction and “epistolary” games ask players to uncover stories through documents, emails, and chat logs. The festival also promises titles focused on “Learning another language,” suggesting that educational software—often the origin point of typing games—will have a strong presence. Games like Influent have long gamified vocabulary learning, turning a virtual apartment into a language sandbox.
Why Typing Games Endure
Why do we love typing games? In an era of VR headsets and photorealistic graphics, why do we return to text-based mechanics?
Part of it is the skill ceiling. Typing is a universal skill for PC users, but mastering it is a lifelong pursuit. There is a visceral satisfaction in watching your WPM climb, in executing a perfect sentence without a backspace, and in the rhythm that develops when your fingers are in sync with your brain. It induces a “flow state” faster than almost any other genre because the feedback loop is instantaneous.
Furthermore, there is the hardware aspect. The mechanical keyboard hobby has grown rapidly over the past five years. Enthusiasts spend hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars on custom switches, keycaps, and lubrication to achieve the perfect sound and feel. For these “keeb” fanatics, typing games are the ultimate playground—a way to put their expensive hardware to the test and enjoy the “thocky” sounds of their build.
What to Expect: Sales and Demos
Starting tomorrow, players can expect deep discounts across the board. While the full list of participating titles hasn’t been revealed, the genre staples likely to see price cuts include:
- Epistory – Typing Chronicles & Nanotale: Beautiful action-adventure games where you explore an origami world by typing words to clear obstacles and fight insects.
- The Textorcist: For those who want a punishing challenge.
- Touch Type Tale: A unique blend of RTS strategy and typing.
- Cryptmaster: A recent dungeon crawler where you speak (or type) to the dead to solve puzzles.
- Cook, Serve, Delicious! series: While not strictly “typing tutors,” these games require frantic keyboard inputs that scratch the same itch.
The event runs for a short window—just Thursday through Monday—so players will need to act fast. It serves as a perfect palate cleanser between the massive RPGs and shooters that usually dominate the Steam charts.
Get Your Fingers Ready
Whether you are a 120 WPM speed demon looking to slay monsters or a hunt-and-peck casual looking to write some poetry, the Steam Typing Fest has something for you.
Valve has released a high-energy trailer to hype the event, showcasing the chaotic variety of gameplay on offer. You can watch the letters fly and the enemies die in the video below.
Watch the Official Trailer: YouTube Link
The event goes live tomorrow, February 5th, at 10 a.m. Pacific. Make sure your switches are lubed, your wrists are rested, and your spellcheck is off.
Visit the Event Page (Live Tomorrow): Steam Typing Fest
Genre Spotlight: Three Games to Watch
If you are new to the genre, here are three wildly different experiences you should look out for when the sale starts:
1. The Action Pick: Epistory – Typing Chronicles. This is widely considered the gold standard for modern typing adventure games. You play a muse riding a three-tailed fox through a papercraft world. Combat is entirely typing-based. Seeing the word “FIRE” appear over an enemy and typing it to burn them to a crisp is endlessly satisfying. It adapts to your typing speed, making it accessible for beginners and challenging for pros.
2. The Hardcore Pick: The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia. Do you hate yourself? Do you want your fingers to cramp? This game is a bullet-hell shooter in which you cannot shoot back unless you are typing. You have to dodge complex patterns of bullets while typing Latin incantations. If you get hit, you drop your bible and have to run to pick it up. It is frantic, stylish, and incredibly difficult.
3. The Chill Pick: Kind Words. Sometimes you just want to relax. Kind Words puts you in a small room with a deer who delivers mail. You write letters about your real-world struggles, and other real players write back. There is no winning, no losing, just lo-fi beats and human connection. It’s the perfect way to use your keyboard for good.