Epistory – Typing Chronicles

Lore & Background

The development of Epistory focused on making it 'feel like a game and not just a typing application,' emphasizing player choice in gameplay design. Built in Unity with the Tiled map editor, the developers used Shader Forge to fix artificial-looking ground tiles. Movement was mapped to the EFJI keys to encourage proper home-key typing posture. The art design was influenced by a separate World War I-themed project at Fishing Cactus, but the frame story of a writer led naturally to a paper-themed world, later expanded into 3D with papercraft and origami aesthetics. Levels were populated with trees using random methods, then manually checked and edited by designers before being saved.

The game entered Steam Early Access on September 30, 2015, with Mac and Linux versions following in October 2015. Chapter Two was released in November 2015, and the price increased to $12.99. Due to the popularity of the early access edition, the release deadline was pushed to 2016, and more resources were devoted to art design, creating assets that did not match earlier levels; these were used in later levels to suggest the world deepening as the player explored. Mod support was added in June 2016, allowing players to change in-game words, add translations, and support different keyboard layouts.

Localization expanded to eight languages beyond English: French, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese-Brazil, Russian, Czech (translated by Jan Balek), and Japanese. Some localized versions were noted as significantly more difficult because those languages use alphabets with more characters than English—for example, Spanish (29 without accents), Russian (33 letters), and Czech (41/42 letters)—though the game remained accessible to younger audiences despite the higher difficulty.

Reader's Guide

Epistory – Typing Chronicles is notable for successfully merging typing mechanics with action-adventure gameplay, a challenge its developers met by prioritizing player choice and game feel over mere typing practice. Its papercraft visual style, born from a writer-themed frame story and influenced by a separate World War I project, gave the game a distinctive aesthetic that earned an honorable mention in the 17th Independent Games Festival's Excellence in Visual Art category and a finalist spot for Best 3D Visuals at the Unity Awards 2016. The game's reception was mixed or average according to Metacritic, though multiple reviewers praised its typing mechanics, and Joshua Vanderwall of the Escapist described it as a meditative experience. Epistory was nominated for the Indie of the Year Awards at IndieDB. Its legacy includes a spiritual sequel, Nanotale – Typing Chronicles, and its mod support extended the game's life by allowing community-driven content and translations. The localization effort highlighted the challenge of adapting typing games to languages with larger alphabets, yet the game remained accessible to younger players. Epistory stands as an early example of a typing game that integrated narrative and exploration, influencing later entries in the genre.

Did You Know?

• The game uses the EFJI keys for movement to encourage proper home-key typing posture.
• The art style was influenced by a World War I-themed project Fishing Cactus was working on.
• The Czech translation was done by Jan Balek.