Epistory - Typing Chronicles (PC) (2016)

Overview: An action typing adventure game.

---

20190115/20190116 AM Hours:
I came across this title in my library a couple of days ago and made sure to prioritize it on the list of games to play. I ended up finishing it.

Eliminating wave after wave of enemies.

Setup: Graphics: 1920 x 1200 Windowed. Fantastic. (I've been playing a lot of games in Windowed mode over Fullscreen mode lately.)

Gameplay Log:
Initially playing i could use EFJI but it was confusing and eventually I used WASD.
However, eventually I got to these ice puzzles where you have to light all the blue pads and not touch the red. Due to the isometric layout, it was more useful to use the EFJI to solve the puzzle. There might be a way to abuse using WASD, but it seemed that going along the diagonals was most straightforward.
Escaping from these monsters was similar. I had to use EFJI.
Oh, I can kind if visualize why EFJI represent the diagonals:

ISOMETRIC CONTROLS   | TRADITIONAL CONTROLS
DIRTN  KEYS  ACTUAL  | DIRTN  KEYS  ACTUAL 
NW NE  E I           |   N      W     W
             E____I  |  W E    A D   ASD
SW SE  F J   _F__J_  |   S      S

Use WASD or EFJI to moe around the world.

Finished the story and most achievements. 7.0 hours. Still need the following:

A) Kill 10,000 enemies. 2,258/10,000
B) Burn 500 Words with fire magic. 440/500
C) Stop 500 enemies with ice magic. 302/500
D) Repel 500 enemies with wind magic. 223/500
E) Use all 4 magic types on a unique enemy
F) Find the prickly fisherman
G) Type 500 characters without a mistake. Best: 217.
H) Type 1000 characters without a mistake. Best: 217.
I) Surpass the average and reach typewriting speed of 60WPM. Best: 57.
J) 5 Hidden Achievements (e.g., the 1% Muse achievements)

Played a little bit more. Still need the following:

A) 2,821/10,000. F-I). J) 4 Hidden Achievements

There are plenty of puzzles.

Steam Game Time: 7.7 hours (total game time)

---

20190116 Part 1:
Today I tried to complete the achievements. After completing some of them and having a go at the one with Words Per Minute, I decided to stop playing.

Gameplay Log:
Today I played the arena with a focus on not making any mistakes. Note that I want to do this organically. There are ways to easily get this achievement, such as using a Steam Workshop level that has only A's.
Let's see how many times I die before I reach the achievement H (dying does not reset the counter). As an estimate, 1000 characters is about 200 5-letter words.

Run #1 (Forest). I made several mistakes. Ice seems better than Spark for doing no mistakes. The single character bugs in Forest are annoying.
Oh, I should track mistakes before each run. But for sure I managed to improve the no miss streak to 374 characters during Run #1.
Run #2 (Factory). Starts @ 1309 errors. I was changing my strategy throughout the level. Ends @ 1314 errors.
Run #3 (Factory). I may have ended on an error. Lol. Ends @ 1315 errors / 31381 letters typed.
Run #4 (Factory). Ends @ 1316 errors / 313195 letters typed.
Run #5 (Labyrinth). Nooo! I mistakened "V" in "VEST" for "W" in "WEST." Regardless, I still hit the 500 mark. Also, this level has synergy with the Ice spell. Ends @ 1317 errors / 32383 letters typed.
I also noticed that sometimes enemies can get stuck behind one anther.
Run #6 (Labyrinth). Ends @ 1318 errors / 32592 letters typed.
Run #7 (Labyrinth). Having the discipline not to rush as death is coming is difficult. Ends @ 1318 errors / 33000 letters typed.
After Run #7, I noticed that my best no miss streak is 867. That must have occurred during Run #6.
Run #8 (Labyrinth). I lost the discipline and panicked towards the end near death. I typed "FLUE" for "FLU." Ends @ 1319 errors / 33168 letters typed.
Run #9 (Labyrinth). I consider using Spark, but I run back into the problem of typing a word that gets destroyed. Ends @ 1320 errors / 33245 letters typed.
Run #10 (Labyrinth). In this run, I more carefully switch between Fire and Ice (and towards the end some careful usage of Spark). Ends @ 1320 errors / 34159 letters typed.
During Run #10, I'm at a best no miss streak of 917 characters! Only 83 characters to go!!! Knock on wood.
Run #11 (Labyrinth). Huh. I thought I hit "P" but it didn't show up on the word I was looking at. So I just didn't press anything else. Apparently there was a mistake, but also, I managed to break 1000 by ten characters! Ends @ 1321 errors / 34252 letters typed / 1010 best no miss streak.

Now I go for the WPM achievement.
Run #1 (Labyrinth). Used Ice until the very end when they were really advancing. Ends @ 1374 errors / 36055 letters typed / 59.32 WPM.
Before my words per minute was down at around the 34s when I was playing for no mistakes. With taht being said, I believe the errors are what lower my WPM.
Run #2 (Labyrinth). Ends @ 1427 errors / 38002 letters typed / 54.52 WPM.
I try going into Story Mode.

Upgrade abilities throughout the game.

I finish Achievement F. As such, now I only have the following:

A) 3,683/10,000. I) Best: 60 (which really means 59 point something rounded up). J) 3 Hidden Achievements.

I return to the arena and after two or three tries I decide to put the game aside.

Steam Game Time: 9.9 hours (total game time) / 2.2 hours (session game time)

---

20190116 Part 2:
However, something about the achievement called me back for a little more.

Gameplay Log:
I had various ideas and tried them out until I eventually got achievement I.

Then I had an idea. I turned the game on and fixed the difficulty to Insane.
Unfortunately, I think the words in Labyrinth can get to be too long. While previously I maxed out at 59. Here I only maxed at 55.
I try Forest. I only get 52.84.
Back to Labyrinth. Hmm I reached the level with the slow enemies.
Okay, I'm going to try and play in a way such that the fast enemy reaches me.
My numbers seem terrible. Turning Adaptive Difficulty back on.
Wait, I keep forgetting to try this one: lower resolution: 1176 x 664 (lowest possible) with fastest graphics quality. Hmm that's too small.
What about the opposite. I'm sitting up straight and going fullscreen at 2560 x 1440 at fantastic quality. Back at 55.
So, inspired by a Steam thread, I start up a new save file. And... I was able to unlock the achievement after the end of the first insect nest (or after 35 words into the game). It's silly, but I'll take it as organic.

Tip: After movement is initiated, sprinting is toggle by the Shift key (after unlocking the ability). I previously thought the Shift key had to be held down.

Enjoy the story

Steam Game Time: 10.6 hours (total game time) / 0.7 hours (session game time)

---

Thoughts:
Pros:
+ Decent story.
+ Beautiful world and good atmosphere
+ Great visual choices. For example, paper style, narration getting written onto the world
+ The existence of narration is nice in theory
+ Adaptive difficulty.

Neutral:
~ Decent music.
~ The isometric+typing controls are sometimes necessary, not most intuitive.
~ Might be fun to speedrun.

Minor Con:
- Sometimes it can be hard to focus on the narration, because I'm focused on the game.
- Supposedly adaptive difficulty is able to extend beyond "Insane difficulty." Why?

Cons:
- The map doesn't rotate with the player's view.
- The map is not available on the HUD; I would have liked to have it whenever I'm not in typing mode. It must be accessed from the menu.
- Powers cannot be turned off.
- Poor WPM calculation. If there are no enemies, there should be no deduction to the WPM metric.

---

Summary:
Overall, Epistory is a short and decent typing game. However, while the adventure and story elements of the game are enjoyable, the core of the game, that is, the typing itself, is not as polished as other typing games I've played.

Personally, I type at about 80 words per minute when copying text (via online typing tests) and the top end difficulty of this game is reasonably difficult for me. Players who are newer to typing (but already know all the letters) may find Epistory's range of difficulty to be reasonable as well, because the game gives a choice of adaptive difficult (essentially based on typing speed, adjusted for accuracy) or a range of fixed difficulties.

Finally, while the mood of the game is generally casual, the game can sometimes feel dark and can sometimes be difficult (with respect to the adventure elements of the game).

---

20240114 Snapshot:
For some reason the last played date matches the last entry above, but the play time differs. I would guess I loaded the game back up while adding the "Thoughts" and "Summary" sections.

Steam Game Time: 11.1 hours (cumulative game time) / 11h 8m (Playnite)
Last Played: 20190116

---

20240114:
Today I started resuming the game. It looked as if my save file was loaded because the different arena leaderboards each had unique ranks under my Steam username. As such, I started playing the arena. However, after some time, it occurred to me that perhaps my statistics were reset or that my old saves were not loaded, because I felt I should be progressing the Steam Achievement. I had the following stats:
(before session) WPM 52.95 | Words typed 270 | Letters typed 1186 | Total errors 33 | Best combo 81 | Best no miss streak 159 | Total kills 66 | Total steps 2433
(after session) WPM 43.00 | Words typed 3441 | Letters typed 14834 | Total errors 553 | Best combo 758 | Best no miss streak 186 | Total kills 1853 | Total steps 2433

In any case, I decided I would try and recover my old statistics. Before trying anything with the files, I went into the menu and poked around. It seems the game was currently loading a save file called 'WPM Achievement' - I'm guessing I created it specifically to easily get a high WPM on the profile. Switching back to the main profile, I saw all my older statistics. Unfortunately, while these numbers are higher, some of my latest contribution via arena is lost (~3000 words and 1800 kills over 1.5 hours). These are the statistics on my main profile: (before session) WPM 47.84 | Words typed 11223 | Letters typed 49368 | Total errors 1757 | Best combo 454 | Best no miss streak 1010 | Total kills 4712 | Total steps 74098

With that being said, my leaderboard numbers are still high and just trying to drive them down will result in getting enough words typed and total kills for the Steam achievements. My goal is to get the rank for each arena to under 1000. They are current 2532 (Forest), 1732 (Factory), 1522 (Island), and 1390 (Labyrinth). They were much higher before I started playing today and I think with practice and luck I will be able to get them all to sub-1000.

Playing while watching some movies, I made some progress on words typed and total kills via the first Arena level, Forest, but I had trouble beating my personal best rank of 2180 from a score of 39904, which apparently I achieved some time today.
(after session) WPM 45.28 | Words typed 16409 | Letters typed 75072 | Total errors 2633 | Best combo 464 | Best no miss streak 1010 | Total kills 7585 | Total steps 74397

Steam Game Time: 15.3 hours (cumulative game time) / 4.2 hours (session game time)

---

20240115:
Today I played while watching La La Land and finished the final achievement of this game ("Kill 10,000 enemies") by the end of the movie (I'm typing this sentence during the movie's credits).
(after session) WPM 45.92 | Words typed 20688 | Letters typed 96117 | Total errors 3414 | Best combo 471 | Best no miss streak 1010 | Total kills 10131 | Total steps 74397

Steam Game Time: 17.4 hours (cumulative game time) / 2.1 hours (session game time)

---

Epistory - Typing Chronicles (PC) (2016)

Relevant Links:
Epistory - Typing Chronicles Website
Epistory - Typing Chronicles (Wikipedia.org)
Epistory - Typing Chronicles (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
Epistory - Typing Chronicles (Steam Store Page)