Type:Rider Review

Type:Rider is a beautifully unique game developed by Cosmografik and produced by Ex Nihilo, Audiogaming and ARTE. Throughout this game you discover and uncover the history of fonts and typographic styles going all the way back from rock paintings to the fonts we know and love today like Times New Roman and Garamond. Now, it’s understandable that reading this might make it seem like quite a boring game – there’s no action and not much story but this game is one of the most beautiful, informative and interesting games I’ve played for a while.

You make your way through different levels collecting letters of the alphabet as you go and finding more and more information about the history of fonts. It’s an interesting concept and the game is executed perfectly to give you a fun and informative gameplay experience while also being soothing and fun with the magnificent visuals and enchanting music and sound effects. People don’t appreciate the history of our typography enough. I’ve always been fascinated by letters and words (shameless English nerd over here) and to play a game that’s actually fun while learning about the history of our ABC’s is something I never knew I wanted.

Playing as two balls, you roll your way through each level and world based on different fonts and part of typographic history with the option of playing additional levels in a speed run mode. You work through puzzles, pushing objects and working your way through while collecting the letters of the alphabet to complete each world (eg. Garamond). The levels themselves are spectacularly designed. The foreground of each level is silhouetted and that’s where you roll across (or swim in some cases… or float because balls can’t swim?). The platforms you play on are all large letters in a certain font style accompanied by books and platforms you can push and little puzzles here and there to keep it interesting. The background is full of pictures and drawings relating to the part of history you’re collecting information about – eg. the tutorial has cave drawings, Egyptian letters, the greek alphabet etc. which makes the levels more dynamic and appealing to the eye as you play through this calming game.

The music is yet another thing I cannot fault. It works so well with the game and the theme and its gentle tones keep the game at a steady pace which is needed while you play. This is not the kind of game that would work with intense music to get your heart pumping and you rushing through levels, and the developers knew that. While it’s always fun to have a bit of intensity in a game to get a player riled up, there’s nothing really extreme about learning about letters and thankfully the developers kept this in mind. Of course, there are a few levels here and there that keep you on your toes and that’s good to stop the game being boring, but the balance in the game with these levels is faultless. The sound effects are fantastic. Every nudge of a book or a platform to every jump has an appropriate sound affect and nothing too obnoxious that just adds that extra level of dynamics to the game.

It’s very difficult to point out any problems with this game. While I did experience some lag while different screens or animations loaded this is the only issue I really found while playing the game and, if you’re like me and aren’t that fussed when a game lags for two seconds then it’s not really a problem at all.

I loved Type:Rider and I’m not sure if the reason for this is my utter nerdiness when it comes to learning about the English language. However, no matter your interest in learning about fonts, this is a fun and peaceful game that is great for sitting back and relaxing while still playing your Nintendo Switch. Type:Rider is one of the best puzzle games I’ve played this year and I can’t wait to get back to it.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo Switch code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.