Grid of Yendor
Grid of Yendor is a minimalistic roguelike set on a spreadsheet where typing is your attack, and the characters you type are your health. Fight bosses, carefully disarm traps (or not!), and use hints in the terrain to find the exit. Descend through the dungeon to retrieve the sacred keyboard Excelibur from its depths.
With procedural level generation but deterministic combat, you always know the fight you’re getting into, but each level remains a mystery before you explore it. To keep things interesting, enemies on the spreadsheet have modifiers and special abilities that keep GY from being just another typing game.
- Choose between 3 difficulties: there's fun for everyone.
- 250 hand-picked enemies to type out!
- 14 adjectives and 7 elements which change enemy stats, making space for strategic play.
- Use signposts and inscriptions to find your way to the exit.
- Scrunch your hands to fight bosses!
- Destroy your wrists in less than 30 minutes!
The web build is provided as a sample. Please download for better performance, sound quality, and save data stability.
Check out my devlog for more information on the game's development.
Controls
- Keyboard keys - Typing
- Arrow keys or (Shift+)Tab/Enter - Movement
- Escape - Pause/resume game
- Right Alt - Take screenshot (only in downloadable builds)
Credits
- Game Design, Coding, Art - me
- BGM/SFX - various users on freesound.org: see in-game credits
- Sense of humour - just me ;)
Status | Released |
Platforms | HTML5, Windows, macOS |
Rating | Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars (7 total ratings) |
Author | Dr.Hippo |
Genre | Adventure, Educational |
Made with | Unity, Audacity, Bfxr, GIMP |
Tags | 2D, Dungeon Crawler, Minimalist, Perma Death, Procedural Generation, Roguelike, Singleplayer, Speedrun, Typing |
Average session | A few minutes |
Languages | English |
Inputs | Keyboard, Mouse |
Links | Blog |
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- v1.2.0 - Game recordsAug 15, 2024
- v1.1.1 - Bug fixesAug 05, 2024
- v1.1.0 - Traps and 2 new elementsJul 18, 2024
- v1.0.2 - Better progress indicatorsJun 28, 2024
- v1.0.1 - More enemy varietyJun 21, 2024
- v1.0.0 - Grid of Yendor's full release!Jun 18, 2024
- One year anniversary + new version in the worksMay 29, 2024
- v0.2.0 - Elements and Navigation CellsOct 25, 2023
Comments
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Twas good again =D loved the traps and additions to the game. Keep up the great work! Your game starts at 17:53
Wow! This is sooo cool! Absolutely amazing job, I love it!
For now i have only the learner mode beaten, but I want to beat other two difficulties as well.
Best typing practice I had for years. It reminds me some other typing game about Sisyphus, but this game is way cooler. And so much more nerve-racking lol. I was stressed the whole time. But in a good way.
Also funny thing, when I was playing I sometimes went not in a cell that I wanted. That probably was fault of my clumsy hands, but it was fun. I regularly took a moment to prepare for next word and place my finger on right keys, but such accidents caused me to think on spot and react fast. It stired up gameplay a bit.
Lookin forward to new updates!
Well i finally played after half a year and I have to say the changes are big, I really love those new signs inscriptions and signposts also new bosses are hell XD This time really no problem with the learner mode also the harder one probably would be doable. + new end game is better not gonna lie.
Maybe encyclopedia is a bit uncomfortable to read. Font might be too big at least for me
Hey, great to see you again. I’ve added a context-based help system as well as 2 new elements and traps. You probably won’t need to read the encyclopedia now :).
I didn't mean that it had no use... just that the font is quite large 🤔
Alr will fix.
Great Idea !
Dude, I love this concept and game. It is very fun and rewarding to play. The only thing that I find hard is the navigation of the cells. Using tab and enter is fine. But to go the other way with shift keeps messing me up. I sometimes add a Capitol letter or my hands are just not on the correct posistion. Maybe make it so that the edges wrap around so the last cell connects to the first?
You can always use the arrow keys instead of tab and enter, just like in Excel.
By the way, I’ve just released the game in full with many improvements today. I think it’s worth your time to try the game again (although the carpal tunnel treatment fees get pretty steep once you’re addicted)
Thanks for the reply. And the heads up! I have tried it out again and wow it feels so pollished and immersive. I wish I could go back in time when I was learning to type and have this game for practice. It is such an amazing and fun expercience! I think the biggest thing that made it even better for me where the new sounds. Well done!
Hello, it’s really fun i love it! It’s a brillant concept; I’ll keep an eye on thi game:-))
This is actually really fun I played it for a couple of minutes and I really enjoyed it
for a more in depth review I need to play it more but so far so good
This game is so awesome! Hope you build up on it in the future as a full rougelite. Def playing this for hours
Hey, I just made an update which adds elemental attacks to enemies and navigation cells to guide you to the next level. Play again to experience all the new features!
I watched AsWhalerGamer play and decided to come and try it out as well. Really fun. I think having to manually sort through the cells slowed down my typing, but it was certainly fun. I really just rushed to the words that sent me to the next floor, as after running through one of the 16 floor modes it seemed like the thing to do. Still, as someone who loves a good spreadsheet this was a fun game to play!
That was pretty fun, and exactly what I needed to get used to my new keyboard
Thanks for the encouragement! The game's still in beta and I'm working on improving it, so if you want a better experience you can follow me to be notified of updates.
Yo for sure! If you need a hand in playtesting tell me, I'd be glad to help!
Really good! (I just wish I was a better typer haha and commentating is HARD when you are xD) Keep up the amazing work!
huge succubus yea thats what ive been waiting for that what its all about
and oh god it was so enjoyable and close i had like 30 characters left i think??? while i had 300 at the beginning of last level. the difficulty really spikes up i think. Other than that game being brilliant and i will definetely not delete it, one gameplay might feel a bit too long honestly, maybe there could be a shorter option. btw would love some difficulty and wpm or something on screen like this one below :) thanks for great game and fun
Thanks for commenting. I'll add more information to the win/death screens and improve their appearance. There are three difficulties btw, so switch to an easier one if you want a shorter game.
I actually barely made it out alive through the easiest one, skill issue probably
I've uploaded a new version which makes enemies slower in learner mode and added difficulty text to the end screen. Check it out!
Great concept!
Most of what I want to say was pretty much nailed by horbror. The main problem is that you get to defeat enemies, heal, and move to other rooms by typing them... but that's pretty much it. As cool as that is, you may need to expand upon it. Once I realized I had caps lock on the whole time (lol), I got bored of the gameplay pretty quickly. Try to make something early on that the play can be hooked by... maybe an upgrade, a boss fight, a story throughout...?
Dude you HAVE to make this an educational typing game, schools would love this.
Hey, thanks for the feedback!
To motivate players to play again and improve at typing, I'm thinking of some kind of persistent score system calculated from average WPM, accuracy, and completion time, along with a "journal" of past runs.
Achievements are also popular in roguelikes, but I'm not sure how to implement them efficiently yet.
I tried out both the easy mode and the medium one and got smoked by both, I guess I am not a very good typer!
Here is my feedback:
- The presentation is clean and good, but I was not in love with the sfx.
- The humor is spot on, just works.
- Even though I sucked the core mechanics felt rewarding, though if you want to get players to continue to play several runs I think you might want to switch it up a bit from time to time. I am not sure how since its a extremely specific gameplay loop. One idea might be to add some sequences where you just buttonmash and instead of typing words it just counts the amount of letters in a limited time. I am not sure, could be fun.
- Since its a typing game, at least for someone like me, that means that I am looking at the keyboard, that kind of got me thinking... If you want to add more narrative, or just some funny lines it would be good to do that with audio. I am guessing that many players will be focused on their keyboards just like me, in that case listening to something would be the proper way to convey more information, story or just jokes. Something like the stuff in "getting over it" perhaps?
Which gets us to: this needs music. I could give you a couple of tracks I have made if you are interested. In my own current project the music I make is a weird blend of styles, but I have a lot of retrotracks laying around. No credit needed, unless you want to.
This one is not at all appropriate for your game, but you can listen and see if you are interested in receiving some muzak. https://soundcloud.com/horbror/fishrites
Overall, I quite liked it, I think that if you are looking for a future market this could work well at schools.
Hi, I've made an update which slows enemy attack speed in learner mode and has improved sound effects. You can try it again to see if you like it better.
I strongly recommend you to download the game and use headphones for the best sound quality.
Will do!
Will do!
this is very fun, typing feels smooth, very intuitive mechanics. good work on this! maybe different types of items instead of just healing would be nice, maybe make wrong letters punish you more?
The idea is interesting and not bad. It's easy in the first two modes but the biggest problem is the lack of variety in my opinion. You could put some twist along the way or things that reward you like, you write in a certain grid with long words and when you finish you get an extra protection against attacks. Something like that. Also, please add different options for resolutions, the experience will be more comfortable. I hope the games improve in future updates.
Thanks for commenting and giving feedback. I already have an idea for improving enemy variety. The adjectives attached to enemies will modify their stats, instead of just being different words to type. For example, a "fast elf" will attack 20% faster than an "elf". The hard part is implementing it.
I also think the first two modes are easy but a lot of people found the first version too hard so I added them.
Yeah, there were UI issues in the downloadable builds which I couldn't sort out quickly, and I wanted to get the demo out today, so I made the resolution fixed at 1080p. I assumed most people will play in the browser where going fullscreen doesn't cause these issues.
If you want to keep track of development progress, you can follow me to get notifications when I update the game.
Reach level 14.
There does seem to be a delay where it doesn't register your keypress directly after taking damage, which will throw you off if you're in a grove.
Other than that, great concept. Really fun.
Fixed that issue and addressed some others as well. The jam version is still available for download.
It sounds fun at first.. then you realize that you are forced to wait every time you take damage before you can type otherwise sometimes it doesn't take the letter you typed in
There is a short delay after you switch cells, and sometimes typing too fast doesn't register.
(which I'll fix in the next update)(Edit: fixed)What do you mean by "you are forced to wait"? You should still be able to type during and after taking damage.
This game is a jam submission so it's a bit rushed. I'll update this with more convenient keybinds and address issues once the jam rating period ends. Thanks for the feedback. (Edit: updated)
Can't really describe directly, but I suppose it might be related to the too fast not registering thing. I'll let you know if I can identify the issue more directly
Best of luck though
I gotta say, I hooked to this typing game. Good concept!