Kewala's Typing Adventure

Lore & Background

Kewala's Typing Adventure was developed by Typequick, a Sydney-based software company founded by Noel McIntosh in 1982. Prior to this game, Typequick had been successful for 15 years, with its software widely used in Australian universities, TAFEs, and schools, and was the biggest selling typing program in Japan. The company had sold $25 million worth of typing programs by 1997, with over half its gross profits from overseas sales. The game was written in Borland C++ and includes 64 background scenes, 2500 animated images, and 20 talking characters. It was designed for ages 11 to 25 and emphasized posture and finger positioning.

Reader's Guide

Kewala's Typing Adventure is significant as an early example of gamified educational software, masking typing lessons within an entertaining adventure story. The game received positive reception for integrating educational content with Australian landmarks and a compelling narrative. It won several awards, including Software Product of the Year in the Social/Life skills category at Japan's 1997 SOFTIC Award ceremony. The game's sales doubled within three months of release, and Typequick's website asserts it annually teaches over 250,000 students touch-typing. Its legacy includes demonstrating how educational software can engage young learners through interactive storytelling, and it was noted for helping children with dyslexia and other special needs overcome writing difficulties.

Did You Know?

• The game was originally called Kewala's Typing Adventure but was renamed Typequick for Students in 1997 after market research found the original packaging looked 'too gamey'.
• The game includes 64 background scenes, 2500 animated images, and 20 talking characters.
• No record exists of this game winning a SOFTIC Award in 1997; the claimed category did not exist that year.
• Claims that the U.S. Department of Defense purchased 1600 copies of an earlier Typequick title remain unverifiable and are not supported by reliable sources.

A Koala's Road to Fluency

Kewala's Typing Adventure casts players as a quintessentially Australian koala who embarks on a ten-to-fifteen-hour interactive journey across the continent. Riding an emu through familiar Australian landscapes and later surfing alongside whales, Kewala guides the player toward the fantastical Kingdom of Eaz. Along the way, typing instruction unfolds organically: the game opens with a tutorial on correct finger placement, moves through nonsense strings such as "assa" and "saas," and gradually builds toward full sentences that physically advance Kewala's movements. The software tracks each learner's speed and progress, resuming at the next lesson whenever the player returns. A hardcover binder accompanying the CD-ROM laid out every lesson for classroom teachers, while the game itself stressed proper posture and hand positioning. Typequick specifically noted the title's value for children with dyslexia and other special needs. Aimed at an eleven-to-twenty-five audience, the production boasted sixty-four background scenes, two thousand five hundred animated images, and twenty talking characters, all rendered in Borland C++.

Fifteen Years of Typequick

By the time Kewala's Typing Adventure launched in 1996, its Sydney-based creator Typequick had already enjoyed fifteen years of commercial success. Founded by Noel McIntosh in 1982, the company had accumulated twenty-five million dollars in typing-program sales by 1997, with more than half of its gross revenue coming from overseas markets. Its software was a staple in Australian universities, TAFEs, and schools, and it held the distinction of being the best-selling typing program in Japan. The Australian Financial Review reported in 1990 that the United States Department of Defense had purchased sixteen hundred copies of an earlier Typequick title, and the company had won the 1992 CODiE Award for Best Special Needs Program with Talking TypeQuick for the Blind. Kewala's Typing Adventure sat at the premium end of the pricing spectrum, a strategy Typequick justified by expecting retailers such as Harvey Norman to invest in-store promotion for a locally supported, high-margin product. The name "Kewala" itself was registered as a trademark on January 3, 1997, covering keyboard-training software and its accompanying instruction manual.

Critics See the Adventure First

Australian reviewers consistently highlighted how the educational core was wrapped in genuine entertainment. The Age described the title as brimming with clever tricks and appealing sound design that kept young players engaged, noting that the typing technique creeps up on the learner quietly. In a follow-up piece the same paper flagged the program's default setting of two spaces after a full stop. The Sydney Morning Herald praised the way skills were woven into an amusing trek around Australia, calling the experience an adventure story complete with music, animation, and games. A later column in the same newspaper summed it up: children play a complete, highly entertaining adventure game and, along the way, end up as competent typists. Supporting Children with Motor Co-ordination Difficulties commended the structured lesson format for motivating pupils to learn touch typing. The consistent critical thread was that the game's Australian landmarks and koala-driven narrative made the learning feel incidental rather than imposed, a quality reviewers found rare in educational software of the era.

From Rebrand to Record-Breaking Reach

The commercial trajectory of the title tells a story of adaptation and sustained impact. When initial sales fell short of Typequick's expectations, the company hired a design agency and conducted market research that revealed the original packaging read as "too gamey" for its intended audience of parents, teachers, and students. The agency produced a new identity—Typequick for Students—debuted in a 1997 re-release that included a multi-user school licence. By 2002 the product carried yet another name, Success With Typing for Students. The rebranding paid off: within three months of release, Typequick's sales had doubled, and the new title matched Typequick Classic in a one-to-one ratio. The company later claimed the game taught over two hundred and fifty thousand students touch typing each year. On the awards circuit, it took home the Software Information Centre Japanese Top Education Course of 1997 and the Software Product of the Year in the Social/Life Skills category at Japan's 1997 SOFTIC ceremony. It was also named PC User Magazine's number-one product at Australian Macworld for two consecutive years and shortlisted for the 1998 SPA Excellence in Software Award in the United States.