QWERTYS by Smart Keys - My keyboard fell apart. Now it's your problem.
Tetris meets QWERTY. It's Tetris, except the blocks are keys and every single one has exactly one home. Drop the A on the A. The Z on the Z. You get it. Miss the spot, and that key turns into a useless gray brick that just sits there, bothering you until you explode it. This is game is sponsored by Smart Keys App.
Stack them right and the keyboard lights up blue, row by row, until the whole thing is whole again. Stack them wrong long enough and the junk piles to the top and it's over.
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QWERTYS by Smart Keys
This is a small game sponsored by Smart Keys (a smart keyboard for iOS and MacOS) that I've been wanting to build for a long time, so here it is.
I think the difficulty is a little off and I can't see it straight anymore, I've played this thing roughly four thousand times, so everything feels "normal" to me now, which is exactly the problem.
My hunch: Level 1 might be too gentle, and the jump right after it too mean. But I'd rather hear it from you. If you bounce off a level, breeze through one, or hit the wall at a specific spot, tell me where in the comments. I read every single one and I'll be tweaking based on what you say. 🙏
If you pass level 8, congratulations, you are a Tetris master. I mean QWERTYS beast :p.
QWERTYS by Smart Keys
QWERTYS is also available on iOS with a leaderboard: https://apps.apple.com/app/qwertys/id6778116654
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
QWERTYS by Smart Keys
@busmark_w_nika Lol, how far have you gotten?
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@diegodottac not so far, I am antitalent for Tetris :D (slow reflex)
the interesting design tension here is that most people have muscle memory for where keys are but not necessarily conscious knowledge of the layout. you might know where the A is without being able to picture the keyboard abstractly. curious whether people who type faster actually perform better at this or whether the spatial reasoning required is different enough from typing that it doesn't transfer. have you noticed any pattern in your playtesters
QWERTYS by Smart Keys
@ansari_adin You brought up a good point. I've seen kids playing the game and understanding it faster than adults, and having mote fun, even without much experience with a keyboard. People who consider themselves fast typers often get quite frustrated and even angry.
This is a smart combination of two concepts. Finding the right spot on the keyboard layout while being under time pressure. As other posters mentioned muscle memory, do you provide QWERTZ as well?
QWERTYS by Smart Keys
@reneandritsch qwertz? Ya mein herz! Catch the germany flag and have fun! You can find them on level 2 or 3
Mailwarm
Are you planning different keyboard layouts too, like AZERTY or mobile keyboards?
QWERTYS by Smart Keys
@thamibenjelloun Azerty? Ouii mon Cheri! Catch the french flag and play the azerty layout bonus.
This looks simple in a dangerous way. I feel like knowing the keyboard layout and actually placing the keys under pressure are two diff skills. Are you tuning the difficulty based on player drop off points?
QWERTYS by Smart Keys
@mert__33 totally! I underestimated how hard is to play and to them make it prograssevely helping yhe user. The logic is quite simple, i invested more on the UX
I’ve read that simple games like this are mostly built with AI these days. Did you use AI as well, or did you still code it manually?
QWERTYS by Smart Keys
@natalia_iankovych Claude Code is my BFF!
Finally, a game that turns my typing mistakes into a gameplay mechanic
QWERTYS by Smart Keys
@workout097_collab how far did you get?
I like how honest the launch post is about the difficulty. That’s exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to judge when you’ve played your own game too many times. Curious to try it and see where I hit the wall. If level 8 is the QWERTYS master test, I already know I’m probably in trouble.
QWERTYS by Smart Keys
@andrasczeizel lol, yeah, how far did you get?
My fingers know where every key is but my brain can't picture the layout at all — same thing as playing an instrument. Do the drops have sound cues? That's half of how muscle memory works for me.