Grammar Nazi
Feb 6 2008: This is what I posted while the site was down. And yes, I’m still waiting for the shell access rights from my old hosting company…
I’m still waiting. My ex hosting company hasn’t given me a shell access, so I could fix the SQL tables and get my blog back up and running. It’s been now 9 days and I’ve been in contact with them several times and they still haven’t been able to give me a shell access or fix my SQL tables.
In the meantime I did a quick one day game, which I’ll provide here.
I’ve been fighting the urge to do a SHMUP for a long time. The indie SHMUP genre is a very interesting and a lively one. So greetings to you all, I admire your work and I hope I haven’t cloned anyone’s game without knowing it!
Grammar Nazi
DOWNLOAD: Grammar.zip (5.8 Mb)
Instructions
You’re the grammar nazi, fighting poor English usage everywhere you go!
Type in letters to fire. You can do damage to the poor English (the boss enemy thing) if you manage to spell a word correctly. Longer words do more damage than short ones.
Controls: your keyboard
Credits
Game Design, Code & Gfx: Petri Purho ( petri.purho (at) gmail.com )
Music: The Coconut Monkeyrocket & Martinibomb - Shopping For Explosives. The song “Shopping For Explosives” is freely available at http://www.archive.org/details/csr016 under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 1.0 license.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Hmm, English is not my home language. So I am not so good at this game :p
Btw, is there a release date for Crayon Physics Deluxe?
February 6th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Nice game, but can i win this game?
It’s nearly impossible, i think.
Btw. i have to restart the game after every round, because the letters shoot in round 2 to much. Was that the intention?
The best i get was one letter left and thats only with much luck. =P
Sorry for my bad english, i don’t speak english very well.
February 6th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Thanks for this nice game
Unfortunately my computer seems to be too slow for it because it keeps skipping letters all the time. Even if I’m typing v-e-r-y slowly it skips every 4th or 5th letter. Plus it obviously has a hardwired English keyboard layout which makes entering words on my German keyboard a pain
Thanks anyway, it’s been fun for half an hour
February 6th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Very well made game…
The Aesthetic Closure is pretty much achieved.
But please put smaller bosses first…it seems that the first boss will never die.
February 6th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Very fun game.
Does skip a few letters but that’s probably my old-ish computer. Having worked as a proofreader for a fair while it’s somehow homely as a concept.
Glad you got the site fixed, well done.
February 6th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Have the same problem as Ole, I don’t know who I should blame, my fingers or my keyboard but the game keeps leaving out some letters and… that’s not fair, you know!
Anyway, could you release an azerty version of this game? ‘Cause I have to do without words with the letters “a/q”, “w/z” or “m”… You may not believe me but it makes the game even more difficult indeed
Thanks for having that crazy-funny-poetic mind and for sharing its fruits like this!
February 6th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Very nice! This is easily the most stylish of all the type-’em-ups I’ve played. I was quite saddened that it would not recognize my Dvorak keyboard layout, though. But nice work nonetheless! In concept, this ranks up in my eyes alongside other typing greats such as Typing of the Dead, Typogun, and Dungeon Scroll.
February 6th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Fun game. I like the music. However, it seems when I type in a long word, it stops in the middle instead of waiting for me to finish. Is this happening becuase I type too slow? (I felt I was typing fairly fast)
February 7th, 2008 at 4:21 am
Ummm… Maybe you should have called your game “Spelling Nazi”, because it sounds like you are graded on spelling and that was a grammar mistake in that line I quoted. It’s “than”, not “then”…
Cheers,
- A-perfectionist-is-not-necessarily-a-grammar-nazi-is-it?
February 7th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Damn, “Spelling Nazi” would have been much better name for the game… Why didn’t you tell me that one when I was naming the game
February 7th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I also quite like the game, and I think I’ve noticed that when you ’skip’ a letter, it’s because that letter isn’t connecting with any portion of the boss? I’m also a bit disappointed that it’s so hard… is there any way to make it easier?
Either way, fun concept, thanks for the one-day game! Looking forward to CPD, got my wacom ready!
February 7th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
The game works perfectly! You just have to time your attacks so that, when you’re typing, you’re in the position to hit letters on the boss. If you don’t hit letters, the letters you type in don’t register.
Wow. An amazing concept, stylishly executed. I didn’t realize I made so many mistakes when I typed (maybe under duress?)! Excellent choice of music as well.
I know it was a one day game, but maybe using sound effects, appropriate for the music, would have been cool for feedback - short bursts of brass, maybe, for successful attacks? A defeated, winding down trumpet when you lose? These sounds, at the right levels, usually fit themselves naturally into the music without any additional cleverness. Gosh, look who I’m telling…
The boss also tilts a bit too much, which is why people may think the mechanic doesn’t work (but it really does).
But, all told… I feel so bad when I look at your site and I see so many great concepts (full games in their own right) and, no matter what, I can’t think of these things. Then you go and add another amazing idea to the list.
Awesome.
February 8th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
[...] Kloonigames latest - Grammar (not entirely related but welcome back to the blogging world Petri) [...]
February 8th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Quite like-able game, but the first boss is impossible to kill, especially since if you type too fast, a lot of the letters, even though getting shot, don’t get counted in the word. Also, it assumes you have a qwerty keyboard.
And yes, spelling nazi would be better. Surely you can fix all that for the next release?
February 10th, 2008 at 1:29 am
suggestion- it seems that whenever the game finds a word in your input it immediately sends that word to function-land
so my suggestion is this
make a timer that starts whenever you stop typing for about 3 seconds (anyone typing slower then that should not play this game)
after those 3 seconds find the longest word in that text blab thingy and then send it to function-haven
also add a key to wipe the entire text blab and make a limit to the length of the text blab
ps
what programming language did you use? and can i have the source files?
February 12th, 2008 at 12:45 am
[...] Grammar Nazi is a new “type ‘em up” from Petri Purho, the developer behind the IGF-nominated Crayon Physics Deluxe. The goal of the game is to type words to attack your opponent. Longer words do more damage, but leave you more vulnerable – while you’re typing your protective shield goes down. [...]
February 12th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Three whole seconds, SirSidy? Jeez… I don’t think the problem is it immediately sends the word to “function-land”, I think you may be typing a bit slow.
Three seconds is about how long it takes me to type “antidisestablishmentarianism” …. yes… i timed myself, shush.
Another way of solving the problem is allowing you to press enter when you’re done… as well as have some kind of 3 second time limit thing.
February 13th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I’m typing Dvorak (no Qwerty) so I can’t play it :,(
February 13th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
This is far too hard, any time I type anything more than three letters I lose health
February 14th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
CookieJar->3 seconds are the max time
it can be half a second i dont really care you’re not the only fast typer in the world….
i hate when i pop other people’s reality bubles
(5 seconds post writing time)
February 14th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I’m more partial to the hitting enter when you’re done typing.
February 15th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Hi, I just downloaded this game and when I tried to play it, the following message would show up, “Could not create Direct3D device”. I read the README file and made sure I installed .NET framework 2.0 and the latest DirectX driver.
Anybody have any idea what’s wrong?
February 19th, 2008 at 12:02 am
[...] this little piece of entertainment. Type words to destroy the enemy, longer words might cause more [...]
February 21st, 2008 at 8:55 pm
[...] (ein toll gemachtes Horror-Spiel, ganz ohne Leichen, aber mit sehr bedrückender Atmosphäre) und Grammar Nazi - hier muß man möglichst schnell, möglichst richtig [...]
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I think I ticked the game off. I couldn’t take out the boss with smaller words. Even three or four letters at a time I’d inevitably get hit, and it’s not that my typing skills are entirely shabby. I type sufficiently fast. So I turned to just trying one word repeatedly that I knew I could do pretty quick. That didn’t help. So then I started trying to type out “disestabishmentarianism” based on a suggestion from earlier in this thread. I managed to get the game to acknowledge smaller words inside that word, like “disestablish” and “establishment.” However apparently I can’t manage to quickly type the whole word out in one quick go without a typo of some sort. That’s when the rain came. The game started pouring so many letters down on me so fast that if I just let the game sit and watched it, the shield was deflecting a letter about once a second on average, making it impossible to even consider typing out a three letter word. It’s a great idea for a game, but maybe you should start giving yourself more than one day to hammer a game out.
February 27th, 2008 at 2:31 am
If it were up to me, I’d say the rule should be to fire when the user hits space or doesn’t type anything for 2 seconds.
February 29th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Sorry, but I don’t really understand the rules at all. What is the goal of this game and how can it be reached? Thanks!
February 29th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
If you want to support non-QWERTY keyboard layouts you can do so according to the info in this post:
http://listas.apesol.org/pipermail/sdl-libsdl.org/2001-November/021785.html
Basically currently you have SDL setup to use the keyboard as a “giant gamepad”, to use it as a character input device you must ask SDL to give you unicode characters.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Reverse Phone Detective Review…
Reverse Phone Detective Review…
March 16th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
this is the hardest game I’ve ever played.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Hi there!
I am currently using an azerty (French) keyboard. I’ve seen Max’s comment but I don’t really know what to do with this information. Will there be an update of Grammar Nazi?
March 29th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Great game and concept, certain worth another day of polish. First thing I’d suggest is making it easier initially to let people enjoy it more. I think the game mechanic is very clever but needs some clarification as can be seen from the earlier discussions.
All the best,
Mark
April 6th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Awesome game, awesome music (had to go find more from the artist), but like everyone says, it’s too hard. I don’t know if you’re going to go back and tinker with it at all, but I was thinking that it would be a good mechanic if the player got a little health back with successful attacks, depending on the length of the word. I found that I could type “compartment” really fast, in case anyone is interested…
July 8th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
[...] except by observing the fine prose style of some of the Loggers. But it has provided me with the ammo I need to blow away the grammar nazis who won’t let me split an infinitive or tell someone they don’t have [...]
September 30th, 2008 at 3:06 am
WOW…
on my very first try i pulverized the boss with 22 words.WOOOO!!!!
September 30th, 2008 at 3:08 am
p.p.s
08<
Hawaiian boobies lol!!!!
October 28th, 2008 at 8:32 am
I also find this fun, but difficult. Can’t seem to pass the first boss with words like establishment (disestablishment is a bit much for me to type reliably fast), unsuitable, territory etc
Now that I’ve read these blog comments the game is a lot more fun, the mechanics of it not being entirely intuitive (there’s another good word, counterintuitive :p ), but still leaves me left behind at the first stage.
September 15th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
gooooooood
February 2nd, 2010 at 8:29 pm
gooodd
May 9th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
promote broadband adoption, with the rest going into a lock box under the “forbearance” procedure the commission has available to it.
June 13th, 2010 at 4:48 am
How embarrassing.
It says “Longer words do more damage then short ones.” in the readme.
August 17th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Wonderful, that’s definitely what I was seeking for! You just saved me alot of work