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Elbe Labs

MechanicalKeyboarding

a typing game about machines

A typing tutor disguised as a factory game. Explore a pixel frontier, build machines, and run every one of them by typing.

Interface English Русский more coming Layouts QWERTY ЙЦУКЕН more coming
Where to buy Enter Trailer

The game

Every machine is a typing lesson

The map is a field of machines, and each one runs on typing. Stand at a machine and a line appears under the map; type it, and the machine works.

Mines dig ore, and the machines you build turn it into better materials. Every new mine and machine brings new keys, and that is how the lessons advance: from your first few letters to the whole keyboard, without a drill that feels like a drill.

Genre
Typing tutor, factory builder
Worlds
The Frontier, Open Range
Courses
English (QWERTY), Russian (ЙЦУКЕН)More layouts to come
Interface
English, РусскийMore languages to come
Platform
PC, played with a physical keyboard

Trailer

Watch the machines work

Trailer coming soon

How it plays

Walk, type, build

  1. Walk to a machine

    Walk with the arrow keys. Stand at a machine and its line appears under the map, with its keys lit on the screen keyboard.

  2. Type its line

    Type the line and the machine runs. A wrong key stops the line until you find the right one, so it never pays to rush.

  3. Build more

    Hold Space on open ground to build. Each machine shows its price, and each one you add brings new keys to learn.

The first two keys, under the index fingers.

Worlds

Two worlds, a save for each

  • Map of The Frontier

    The Frontier

    One wide meadow, six lands around its rim, and everything to go and see.

  • Map of Open Range

    Open Range

    One wide plain, every vein in a row, and room to build wherever you like.

What you mine, build and unlock in a world stays there. Switch worlds and each one waits where you left it.

In the works

What you get

  • Languages and layouts

    Full courses for English QWERTY and Russian ЙЦУКЕН, and the whole interface in either language. More languages and layouts are on the way.

  • A world that turns

    The map keeps its own clock, from dawn to dark and back every six minutes, and the weather turns over on its own.

  • Accuracy first

    The game checks every character and waits for the right one. Speed comes on its own once the fingers know the way.

  • Up to automation

    Keep your shipments flawless and the grid comes on; in time, every machine hums without you.

  • Real typography

    Em dashes and «guillemets» count as characters to type, from a typographic layout or the Alt codes.

  • Made for keyboards

    A physical keyboard, a desk and a factory that grows as your fingers learn.

Screenshots

From the frontier

  • A lamplit pixel-art frontier with machines along a dirt road, a bag of materials, and the on-screen ЙЦУКЕН keyboard below
    Night on the Frontier, with the Russian keyboard below.
  • The world picker: the title in brass, language and layout switches, and the worlds The Frontier and Open Range
    Pick a world, a language and a layout.

Platforms

Where to buy

  • SteamPC · Coming soon
  • Epic Games StorePC · Coming soon

Mechanical Keyboarding is coming to PC. Store pages will be linked here as they open. Help: Support · Privacy