I am pushing 70 years of age, and I am horrible at video games, in general. But this is a great game! I've been typing for years and I like puzzle games a lot. This game is excellent.

tl;dr: A fun game that you might be able to count as school credit, Nonotale is a good time for those who want to show off their typing skills--or, perhaps, just practice them in a more entertaining matter. A stronger narrative, quests, and cataloging build on the foundation set by the first Typing Chronicles, Epistory, though story and questing have plenty of room for improvement. However, the game suffers from many bugs and perhaps should have spent a bit longer in the oven. Not bad enough for a "no": none I encountered were game-breaking, just irksome, and the developer is still working on updates and fixes as of this review. Therefore, unless you have a massive hankering for typed combat (get it), hold off on buying this for another month or three after release while bugs get ironed out.

Updated 4/15/21: indicated one bug example (failed opening cutscene) has been fixed, removed ref to another bug example which turned out to be the same bug; recommendation remains unchanged

Nanotale is the Dark Souls of typing ga^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H I loved the first Typing Chronicles, Epistory. The basic gameplay remains the same in Nanotale: Type words to attack enemies and cast spells. Nanotale expands on this by introducing modifiers and having much stronger puzzle-solving mechanics. All of these are environmental--no sliding puzzles here!--and while most require a specific spell the solution still has flexibility. Unfortunately, mechanics and world interaction need better explanation, many situations require trial-and-error. A spell learned in the first act takes on a new use in the third act, and my first encounter gave the wrong information of how it needed to be used.

Just like Epistory, Nanotale has a modular difficulty system: The better you are at typing, the more complex words the game serves. The default English dictionary feels a tad limited, as many enemies had only a handful of words associated with them. (Though this creates a very subtle-but-interesting adjustment in the final fight.) While I did not give it a try, the dictionary can also be modified to include names/places/terms as you like, or for a language without official support. Touch-typing is a must-have, along with memorizing the spell terms (which is easy, as they're short): "arenas" require you to watch massive waves of enemies, and having to hunt-and-peck or review your spell list means death. Basic attacks are "free", but you'll need mana-consuming spells for large groups; unfortunately, you have to look at the very bottom of the screen to see if you have sufficient mana to cast. You also can't prep a cast while mana is regenerating.

I found the music and visuals of Epistory to be just as strong as the typing gameplay: As you explored the papercraft-stylized world, pieces of it would literally unfold in an origami-manner with beautiful tracks to everything. Nanotale keeps the great music, but the world takes a more typical fantasy setting. Gone are the fun animations and world style, but the world still looks great and now includes cataloging (not just a bestiary, but also flora and archaeology).

Ditching the paper-craft aesthetic does allow for a more complex world, with lots of levels and some nice camera work in certain sequences. It also creates more than a few bugs as your character, Rosalind, gets stuck on ledges or in barriers that can be turned on/off. This becomes more annoying when environment modification comes into play, creating bridges, and knowing where to actually walk requires trial-and-error. Some sloped terrain has non-intuitive "walls" along the lower edges that--as they are not frequent--will trip you up in arenas. The devs are aware of this, though, and you can respawn at a checkpoint from the menu to get unstuck (without losing progress, as far as I could tell from the few times I had to use it.)

Epistory did have a story, but it was more vague/ambient until the absolute end and could have been removed without hurting the game. For Nanotale, the story is... a story. It's stronger and works, but twists are generic and very easy to forget. The narration is great, even better than the first game; unfortunately, the animations of the character narrating doesn't match the energy and emotion in the voice. The first villain sounds enigmatic but their character model will look like it's doing some basic stretches. The in-game critter friends (one per biome) have the most interesting animation; I wouldn't mind a Steam sticker or something of each.

The quests could have been neat, but it felt like I wasn't assigned any of them until I did the first part without realizing it. There are side-quests where I was more aware of "accepting" them (which only requires talking to a certain NPC) but I often completed them without realizing I was about to do so. And, as side-quests didn't seem to have any impact, there just wasn't a point to them at all. I stopped talking to NPCs after the first act unless I couldn't figure out what to do, which was fine because they all look incredibly alike. The second and third act had 2-3 "important" NPCs but it's impossible for me to recall any of their names or pick them out of a line-up. (It didn't help that many seemed to transport between areas, adding to confusion.)

Nanotale suffers from a number of technical issues: It's a massive memory hog (even at the low quality setting), cutscenes can fail or be jittery, and basic barriers/paths will reset on game load or area re-entry. A specific example is that I could not get the opening cutscene to play: Rosalind would just appear on some hill, would not move, audio for the cutscene would play, and then the game would begin. After a few tries I gave up trying to watch it, but an effect of this was that all narration and sound-effects were absent and "SKIP" was still on the screen until I quit and re-loaded. (As of 4/15/21 this specific bug has been fixed.)

The game also uses an auto-save system; the checkpoints are plentiful, but the only indicator of a save is a tiny icon in the lower-right corner that flashes far too quickly. There's no way to manually save, and no indicator to tell you how long ago the last save was; I had minor worry when quitting that I was going to lose progress. My experience may be worse than average, though, as I don't meet their minimum requirements: Win7, a graphics card from five years ago, barely meet RAM requirement. But, again, their specs seem incredibly high for a game like this which probably needs a few efficiency passes.

The developer is active in the game's Discussions, though, and I expect they'll put out updates and patches for at least the largest of issues. But even if the game's current state turns out to be the game's final state, I didn't find the bugs horrible enough to recommend against the game (though I would change my recommendation to "buy on steep discount" in that case.)

While Nanotale suffers from bugs, a ho-hum story, and an almost-pointless side-quest system, the gameplay, music, and world lore collection are strong enough to make those quibbles instead of show-stoppers. If you want to put those Mario Teaches Typing results to good use in a 7-9 hour jaunt, Nanotale is right up your alley. But maybe wait a few months for kinks to get ironed out, and/or a sale that drops it at least 25%. All tale-ed, it's a good follow-up to Epistory; I look forward to a future third entry with vast improvements to the story, quest system, and engine efficiency.

And if you think this review is long... it's a typing game. Why wouldn't I type words for the review, too, maxing out Steam's character li

If you haven't played "Epistory - Typing Chronicles", go for it before trying Nanotale. Epistory is great. Then, you'll probably want to support the developers by buying Nanotale in Early Access. There is no point in judging the quality of Epistory by the current status of Nanotale.

If you played Epistory and enjoyed it... get this game. Right now the thing that makes me the most angry is that I listened to the bad reviews and spent so long not playing this game.

At the time of writing this I'm about 4.5 hours in and have completed the entire first area (including getting all the lore from plants and such) and have moved onto the second area.

Let's get this out of the way first. If you like typing games this is a fantastic typing game. You'll like it. Get it. Art is lovely. Voice acting is.... eh? So far the story isn't blowing me away, but it's not a bad story. End of day if you like typing games, it's a good one. Get it.

Now for the rest of you. The people here because you played Epistory. I wanna make some things clear out the gate.

There is A LOT this game has in common with Epistory with some key differences. So I'm not going to go over the similar things because frankly for me that is a much longer list than the things that aren't similar.

-The absolute biggest difference is boss fight areas. Unlike in Epistory you are allowed to move around in the areas. This was something I read in the reviews before and decided it turned me off the game cause it sounded clunky. It's not. Also movement is NOT WASD it's EDSF. Trust me it sounds weird but don't change it. It helps the game flow a lot better when you are switching between moving around and attacking. The movement helps a lot with strategy as another difference is that you can use enemies to effect the environment around you and to do damage to other enemies.

For instance there is an enemy that explodes into flames. Position yourself right and attack that, make it explode, and it will burn near by enemies. Between the movement in locked in an arena fights and the addition of enemies that have different effects and abilities makes it so the game is not going to get boring and samey like some of the gameplay in Epistory did. Instead of a bigger and bigger enemy meaning you are just typing bigger or more complex words. They can ram you, move faster, explode, etc. It adds a lot of flavor to the formula that was Epistory.

-The next big difference is your abilities. Where as you had a few set abilities in Epistory. In Nanotale you have a lot more to work with because you can change the way an ability acts. For instance. Just like you had Fire in Epistory you also have it in Nanotale. However. When you cast Fire on a certain point or enemy you can also had a combination of other words to deal extra damage or make it have a wider range. You can type Fire, Long, and Ray to fire a long ray of fire or just type fire to get a small circular area of effect or type large fire and you will get a bigger circular area of effect.

So far I have mostly used these abilities outside of battle to do things like move around sheep that are blocking my path or to get to new places in an area. If you use them in battle though it takes a lot of thinking on your feet as you are evading enemies and typing and throwing attacks their way. Again though I find it to be a very fluid system that I have gotten the hang of very quickly.

-Another possibly off putting part of the game that is different is the art. It has a very similar feel and look as Epistory with the main difference being that we don't have the folded paper origami look of Epistory. It's still beautiful design though.

-Last thing is that this game does have collecting. You will find various plants and creatures that you need to get close enough to to type out their words and "collect" them to get additional story, to level up, and unlock new abilities.

In summary all of the biggest differences so far in the game have also been the ones I've seen people ♥♥♥♥♥ about the most. Seen people say it's an inferior game to Epistory. Saying it's clunky movement and so on. However I will absolutely argue that the games mechanics and controls are no where near clunky and have been very fluid for me. I'm having a blast. Is it better or worse than Epistory? No. I do think it is on par with it though and that neither is better than the other. They are similar games but they are a very different experience so far for me.

There are a couple negatives though that I do find incredibly frustrating about the game and I do want to point them out.

-It took me till I was at the big boss fight at the end of the first area to realize that I can target ANYTHING with my abilities. There are crystals placed in strategic ways around the map. At first these are explained as basically a focus point for you to use your abilities. You can't just cast an ability where ever you want. You have to have a point from which you cast it. Fair enough. However the game makes it seem like you can ONLY use those crystals. Which is not the case. You can cast your abilities on ANYTHING that requires a word to type. I really wish the game had explained this better as it would have saved me the few areas of frustration I was having and from having to look up how to get to the boss fight because I couldn't physically get to it without targeting something other than a crystal. PLEASE! Devs make it more clear in the game that you can target anything.

-Saves are another thing. Another thing I had to google. The game doesn't ever state that it auto saves and there is no save button. However when I looked into it I found a steam discussion where the dev says that the game as LOADS of save points. They also say that the save icon appears in the lower right hand corner. Which is cool. I've had no issues with saves picking up where I left off so far. Even though I've only started playing tonight I did have to close the game several times while playing to do other things. It doesn't change that I wish the game at least had a pop up that TOLD YOU these things. I shouldn't have to google it Fishing Cactus. You need a pop up in game that tells players how the save works so that people don't have to look it up or just risk their save not happening. Heck even if your game has auto saves and loads of save points. Actually having a save button would be nice and is something that exists in a lot of games with auto saves for the reason of allowing players peace of mind that their game saved before closing it.

-This next one is maybe me being dumb, but for the life of me I can't find quest details in the pause menu. My map also zoomed in really far and I can't figure out how to unzoom it. So a bit of a better navigation situation on the pause menu would be nice. Being able to actually interact with the map by clicking on icons would also be nice. Looking at the map I can tell what is a main quest and what is a side quest but from what I can tell I can't tell what each quest is without walking to it.

All in all. It's a great game and if you liked Epistory I recommend picking it up. I got it on Fanatical in a bundle currently going on for $3 but I would have paid around $15 for the game. So wait for a little bit of a sale and pick up the game if you like Epistory or enjoy typing games. This game frankly gets more hate than it deserves and is underrated from what I've seen of it so far.

(Long review incoming -- apologies! tl;dr: I like Epistory more, but this is well worth checking out regardless. Note that my playtime here is quite artificially inflated. I'd accidentally left the game running more than once, so this is not the time required to finish the game.)

It would have been easy for Fishing Cactus to rest on their laurels and put out a game that was effectively Epistory 2, but instead they took a gamble and struck off in some new directions for Nanotale. It's a bold move, especially in a market where typing games are infrequent at best. The result is a game which, despite sharing a lot of DNA with Epistory, ends up feeling quite a bit different. For me, the changes are a mixed bag (and I have to admit I prefer Epistory), but I'd definitely recommend the game regardless.

One of the major changes in Nanotale is the spellcasting system. Just typing a target name will always do a "basic" attack, but you can prefix it with "FIRE" or "ICE" (or a variety of other spell types) to cast special attacks. Also, instead of just typing "FIRE" to set up a fire spell, you can add modifiers, such as "FIRE RAY LONG," which will send a long beam of fire towards your target (potentially hitting other targets on the way), which burns for a longer than usual time. It adds for a lot of flexibility in combat, and is also integral to the sometimes-tricky puzzles in the game.

Complicating the spellcasting is the addition of a mana bar, which will get used up as you cast your spells in combat. When the mana bar dips below a certain point, all you have available is your "basic" attack, meaning you don't have access to fire/ice/etc. Unlike in Epistory, where you'd "lock" in your attack type, every attack has to be prefixed with your spell type, if you want more than the basic attack, so you'll find yourself using just the basic attack pretty often.

As a result, Nanotale places a much higher emphasis on movement during combat. In Epistory's wave-based arenas, your character's position would be fixed and it was a matter of raw typing speed combined with strategic use of your elemental type locks. In Nanotale, you're free to move around, and you'll find yourself lining up "RAY" shots, zipping around between teleporters, and making use of environmental cover while your mana bar recharges, so that you can unleash some more elemental AOE attacks on groups of enemies. It's got the curious effect where often Nanotale doesn't even feel like a typing game, really -- it's more akin to some kind of mage-based "action-adventure" RPG, where instead of mouse clicks or hotkeys, you're using the keyboard to manage your attacks.

I do miss Epistory's tighter characterization of words to use when attacking enemies. Nanotale's creatures do each have their own unique set of dictionary words which characterize them pretty well, but I miss having the variety of little fast-flying single-letter enemies, slower-moving slugs which required long strings of three-letter words, hidden safes which required numerical combinations, etc. The enemies in Nanotale end up feeling a bit "samey," even though they have different attack patterns and behaviors, because there's little typographical difference between them.

In regards to the spellcasting system once more, Nanotale does let you do your own exploration and discovery with the various spell combinations, and very rarely holds your hand through any of that. I appreciate when a game does this, though it does mean that you're prone to sometimes missing very obvious things. I went through basically the entire game without realizing that you can dispel fog using your PUSH/PULL spells, for instance, and got stuck at the end for quite some time because I didn't realize something was possible. I was embarrassingly far into the game before I realized that I could be using "ICE" on enemies, just because having to prefix every spell with that modifier made me never even think to change up my "FIRE" muscle memory. Still, that dedication to letting the player figure out the mechanics themselves feels like an intentional choice and it's difficult to fault them for sticking to their guns.

In the end, though, my primary complaint really is just that it didn't feel like a typing game, on account of the more complicated spellcasting system and emphasis on movement (I realize that's a weird complaint to levy at a typing game). There were only a couple of arena-like fights (such as the end battle) which really felt like an exercise in raw typing ability. I think the new spellcasting system was an admirable attempt at doing something new, but I don't think it entirely paid off in the end. Still, fans of Epistory should find much to enjoy in here regardless, and fans of typing games in general aren't especially spoiled for choice, so do check it out anyway. :)

I do feel I need to mention that as of just a few days after 1.0 release, the game is still a bit janky, having just come out of Early Access. There's a number of fiddly little bugs and annoyances still in there, but I'm confident that Fishing Cactus will get them sorted soon. There's already been two bugfix releases in the few days since release, and the devs have been extremely responsive on the bugreport forums on here.

Okay, sheesh, this is by far the longest review I've ever put up on Steam. I can't imagine anyone's still reading by this point. If anyone is: hi.

My Playtime: 7.9h (100% achievement, finished the game)
Grindy Achievement(s): No.
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (~30 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.

Nanotale - Typing Chronicles is an adventure game played on a keyboard. You need to use your keyboard to type the words above the enemy's head to attack it, type the words above plants to gather it, and type highlighted words on a dialogue to talk to a fellow human. Everything is done on a keyboard.

Pros:
- Gameplay is easy to understand
- A lot of collectibles, all marked within the map for easy completion

Cons:
- It's easy to get soft-locked
- Opening minimap several times will bug it, making it not disappear after it's toggled off

Specs
Steam Deck: AMD Zen 2 4c/8t 2.4-3.5GHz, 16 GB RAM, 8 AMD RDNA 2 CUs

If you want to practice typing or want to play a game that is playable only with a keyboard, yes.

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The visuals in Nanotale - Typing Chronicles look great, so great that it fries my laptop—I was forced to play this on Steam Deck, which works well afterward except for a few times when I can hardly see what I should type to attack an enemy. I think part of what makes the game so resource-intensive lies in its overuse of effects, which can't be toggled off in the settings. They make the game look great, though.

The story isn't special. It can be confusing at first, with you meeting a spirit and suddenly being forced to travel the whole region without any reason. The story starts to make sense at the end—minus the traveling part, where it unfolds all mysteries since the first area. The ending was alright. It ties up all loose ends while still giving the conclusion to the story.

Gameplay
As I said before, you play Nanotale - Typing Chronicles with a keyboard. You move with a keyboard, you interact with a plant with a keyboard, you attack with a keyboard—it's all done the same way. Most of the time, you'll have to type whatever is written above the target's head to trigger it. The game does this smoothly even when there are a lot of targets to type. You can cancel your current typing with a backspace button too, which helps when you accidentally press the wrong button.

You have a lot of spells you can try, some can be learned after you progress the game. These spells will help you to access some areas, allowing you to backtrack to find areas that you couldn't reach before. The backtracking in this game only revolves around a single area; you can collect everything in an area before you move to a new one.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2442403256

The game makes it easy for you to collect everything. The map will give a marker whenever there is something that you can forage, and it's drawn in such detail that makes it hard to get lost.

It can take time to figure out what each spell can do, especially since they can be too vague to figure out. Take the first spell for example. You get a push and a pull spell to push and pull an object towards something, but you can only cast it to another object. Add it with the large and long modifier—it makes the spell more vague.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1897371552

The confusion also contributes to the puzzles, making them harder than they should be. Sometimes, I would stuck for minutes just to figure out what to do because I still hadn't managed to master the spell yet. However, there are also other puzzles that are cleverly done and require more thinking to solve.

Combat
Combat is alright. There are two types: one where you have to survive a wave of enemies, the other is where you just kill everything in your way. Story progression relies on the first one a lot. Enemies will come in droves and you need to prioritize which one to kill. Your spell also helps in this case, giving AoE damage to a bunch of enemies, especially when you use a modifier to make it larger.

Enemies have different attack patterns. Most of them are not harmful unless they get close, although there is one that will charge you quickly. You need to reposition yourself when they attack if you don't want to take damage. However, I found myself not moving most of the time, especially since I'd rather focus on killing the enemies.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2599048836

Sadly, boss fights feel repetitive. They might have a different attack pattern, but none of them stand out. You need to follow the same pattern to beat the bosses with slight modifications. It's as if I'm fighting the same boss three times.

Length and Difficulty
I finished the game at 7.5h. I then continued playing the arena to test it and spent the rest of my playtime to get the last achievement that I missed. The game is easy to beat, and there is also an accessibility option to make the enemy easier if you want.

Issues
It's easy to get softlocked. The game makes it worse by introducing mechanics where you can walk on a platform that you can grow by using a spell. These kinds of platforms are usually uneven, making it easy to get stuck to.

Sometimes, it's hard to see the text above the enemy's head. I'm not sure whether it's because I'm playing in a Steam Deck and plugging it on an external monitor or not, though.

Nanotale - Typing Chronicles is an enjoyable typing game. There isn't much to the story and combat, but I liked the worldbuilding and the gameplay in general. It feels like going on an adventure, checking out new floras in the region and seeing how it was used in the game. If you enjoy playing a typing game or want to improve your typing skills, I recommend playing this game, especially if you are the adventurous type.

If you don't have patience to explore a rough draft of the game please wait for it to be released. That being said, if you enjoy working through restarts and being part of the process then snap this game up! The developers are super involved, responsive and quickly ironing out a lot of the bugs that are being uncovered.

There's about 90 minutes of gameplay now and it is set in a gorgeous creative world, with unique mechanics and a peek into the deep lore that's being established.

Is this game a masterpiece? No, it is still in Early Access, but it is already a fine game. It is an action RPG, but one where you don't have to be fast with your mouse, but only with your keyboard, because the main requirement to get through the game is... typing words as they appear on screen. Similar to Typing of The Dead or the older Epistory.

Play 18-year old Rosalind, a young witch, as she explores the Ancestral Forest, full of plants, animals and magic. She examines stuff by... typing words. She casts spells by... typing words. She writes down notes by... typing words. She interacts with the environement by... typing words. She talks with creatures by... typing words. She fights monsters by... typing words fast. Type too slow and you get hit. Mistype a letter, and you have to restart. No stress.

Young Rosalind enters the forest together with her teacher, but of course she is alone very soon. After riding on the spirit of a fox, she is far deeper into the forest than she was supposed to be. Now it is up to her to unearth the secrets of the forest and defeat the evil within. Ok, she is not completely alone, the spirit of the fox stays in her head and talks to her... Explore the maze-like map, learn new abilities, upgrade your stats, solve puzzles by manipulating plants and enemies, meet the mysterious White Queen. Just like in a real action RPG.

Nice art style and music, ultrawidescreen is not supported.

Conclusion:
Cute explorative action RPG that teaches you to type. Actually, the action is TYPING.

Nanotale is a pretty okay game, but all of the changes since Epistory end up making Nanotale's combat feel like an action game with a bit of a typing gimmick, more than anything else. Likewise, past the second of three areas, it feels like they ran out of puzzle ideas for the most part, while Epistory was interesting all the way up to the end. It's also a bit shorter, about 6 hours instead of 8 for me, but this might have been because Nanotale requires less backtracking and makes it easier to find things for 100% completion, in comparison.

On the bright side, I still enjoyed it, and the story and ending didn't make me nearly as annoyed as Epistory's did. Recommended somewhat weakly, since I don't feel like it really lived up to being a typing game in any sense, but as far as puzzle games with action-based combat go, it's not bad.

I bought Nanotale after playing and thoroughly enjoying Epistory. At first I was really confused by the gameplay of this one, even though it's based on the same concept -- type words to attack enemies and activate spells. But the way the spells work is a little different, especially with the push and pull effects. It's not all fully explained in the game and trying to figure something out on my own was a bit frustrating. Especially in the desert area where you have to use push/pull to make the vines grow or shrink, and some of the creatures make vines when they die, but not always. It took me forever to realize that it was the SAND underneath the creature that would activate the vines. Same thing with the water-baring creatures -- sometimes the water would make a puddle and sometimes it just vanished. A little more explanation would have been helpful. There were several times in the game where I wanted to activate a spell but couldn't because there were no targets in the vicinity and you don't get the SELF spell till much later; some of that was puzzles and some was just frustrating. I am getting close to the end and I do enjoy the game overall, I would just recommend a few hints to people before they get started to make their journey through the land less annoying.