'Epistory' Adds Some Adventure To The Average Typing Game

It’s not every day we see developers pushing the boundaries of typing games… or even making one for that matter. Naturally, as longtime fans of the underrepresented genre, it only made sense that we check out Epistory, the debut project from Belgian developer Fishing Cactus.

Epistory is a new “atmospheric adventure typing game” that casts players as “the muse,” an unnamed, fox-riding heroine tasked with helping a young writer finish her next book. Players begin the game with access to a sliver of the game world: a tiny landmass featuring little more than a fiery crater. As you explore the map, clearing out dungeons, discovering secret items and uncovering new pathways, the world begins to expand in all directions.

Players navigate the world by guiding the muse with their WASD keys or a four-button combo that Fishing Cactus says better facilitates the switch to typing mode. Whenever the muse finds an interactive spot in the environment, or an enemy that must be dealt with, a quick press of the space bar prepares the protagonist for a combat. Once in typing mode, target words will appear above any objects or enemies on screen. Some enemies will have more than one word that must be typed, and/or require a specific type of magic to be active, to be defeated.

As if its premise wasn’t enough to set it apart, Epistory features a unique, origami-inspired art style that makes the game an absolute treat to watch. Everything in the game appears to be made from folded paper, including the game’s protagonist, her three-tailed kitsune and the various enemies she’ll encounter throughout the campaign. Fishing Cactus even uses a visual effect that makes it look like the map is folding itself into shape when new sections are unlocked.

The game is split into four chapters, each of which includes a pair of dungeons and a variety of hidden collectibles. To be honest, Epistory sticks to a rather simple loop. Players begin a chapter, earn a new power, clear out the corresponding dungeons and then move on. Each new type of magic, fire, ice, lightning and wind also gives the muse access to portions of the map she couldn’t reach before, encouraging players to occasionally revisit areas they’ve already explored. Along the way, players will see observations from the muse and the author she’s helping, seemingly written directly onto the game world, that slowly piece together the story at the heart of Epistory.

As we mentioned, each chapter of the game introduces a pair of dungeons that must be cleared by the player. Usually, that means heading down into a dungeon where the muse is given access to a new type of magic and taught how to use it effectively. The second dungeon tends to be more difficult than the first, with a puzzle or two tied to your new magic, and more enemies packed on screen at once. Both tend to feature a pair of nests, combat scenarios where the muse moves to center screen and must fend off waves of bugs who advance from all directions. Occasionally, you’ll also stumble across a nest in the open world, each of which tends to be substantially more difficult than the nests found inside nearby dungeons.

In a bit of twist, Epistory is also one of the few PC recent releases designed to be played without a mouse. There are a handful of menu options that can be clicked on, to facilitate faster navigation, but those hoping to play Epistory on-the-go will be pleased to know every menu command can also be typed instead of clicked. In fact, typing is how you’ll interact with pretty much every aspect of the game. It’s how you switch magic types, unlock treasure chests and even teleport around the map, provided you’ve assigned a few points into the necessary skill.

There are a handful of issues that make Epistory a difficult recommendation for anyone but the most diehard fans of typing games, though. For starters, we suspect many gamers won’t actually be able to complete the game. This isn’t a matter of whether or not a player has the patience to see things through to the end or take multiple runs at a particularly difficult boss battle. We’re talking about the physical capabilities of the game’s potential audience.

Here at iDigi, we type thousands of words per day, many of us easily exceeding 100 words per minute. Yet there are still sections of the game’s story we struggled to finish, and portions of the world map we’ll probably never see, all because of how fast the game expects you to be able to type (without error). It would be one thing if we’d cranked up the difficulty to give ourselves a challenge, but Epistory features no such option. Players shouldn’t need the skills of a courtroom stenographer to finish a typing game, but that’s what it feels like Epistory demands sometimes.

As if that weren’t irritating enough, Epistory has an infuriating tendency to assign the same word to two targets simultaneously, making it much harder for players to react in dire situations. It’s incredibly frustrating to recognize an encroaching enemy, type in the word you think will freeze it, only to discover another enemy has since spawned with the same target word. On one or two occasions, the words used to swap magic styles would be assigned to an object or enemy, making it impossible to destroy. Neither is a common problem during the first few hours of Epistory but both become bigger issues in later chapters, when larger groups of enemies begin to appear.

On a smaller scale, Epistory has a tendency to obscure enemies’ target words in a way that feels cheap and generally dampens the play experience. It’s one thing to die because we didn’t notice the single-letter gnat flying towards us in a group of larger bugs. Being forced to repeat the same content because target words don’t appear makes us want to put the game down and move on to something else. We were also disappointed by the lack of balance between the various elemental effects. Certain enemies will require you to switch to a specific magic type, depending on the color of the text floating above them. But the vast majority of the combat scenarios in Epistory can be completed by leaning heavily on the ice shot; an attack that freezes enemies in place and is made available to the player before the halfway point of the campaign.

Epistory also has its fair share of coding bugs. We’ve run into issues where target words didn’t appear over an enemy and moments where the game stopped registering the letters we were pressing on our keyboard. There were also two occasions when we were forced to send our game save back to Fishing Cactus to address bugs that left us unable to progress.

On paper, Epistory seems like a great idea. Typing games have never been common sights in the industry, the game’s unique artstyle easily sets its apart from other recent releases and Epistory’s adventure game inspirations give it a familiar touch. Exploring the game’s slowly expanding world is both enjoyable and relaxing, especially once the muse begins learning the magics needed to light pathways, freeze water and/or clear brambles from obstructed paths.

Unfortunately, a few hours with the game is all it took for Epistory to get stale. At its best, Epistory delivers better atmospheric storytelling than any typing game we’ve ever seen, with the occasional rapid-fire combat scenario to keep the action moving along. At its worst, the game is unbelievably tedious, drained of all enjoyment by obstacles that feel cheap and a general lack of variety to the game’s enemies and scenarios.

Epistory takes some interesting chances and sets out to make a decidedly different game than anything we’ve experienced over the last few decades. Those who’ve been yearning for a new typing game may find enough to justify a $12.99 purchase, but Epistory is unlikely to convert any new fans of the genre.

Full Disclosure: The PC copy of Epistory used in the creation of this review was provided by a representative of Fishing Cactus; however, the developer did not retain any editorial oversight/privileges.