OverType simulates, to an undesirable degree of accuracy, the experience of using a mechanical typewriter. You can have three fonts, one of which is IBM's classic Courier, set the degree to which you want your typewriter to be broken, and the state of your ribbon ink. You cannot delete—but there is correction paper!
- You need to be on a computer with a keyboard. Mobile touchscreen devices won't work (see Known Bugs below).
- Make sure you have your sound turned on for the fully-immersive experience!
- Just like a real manual typewriter, you can only press one character key at a time. You must release each key before pressing the next. Most people naturally overlap keypresses when typing on a computer keyboard – you may need to change your typing style to avoid skipping characters when typing at speed (see FAQ for more info).
- As well as just typing normal text, you might like try these:
- You can use the cursor keys to move around. The up and down cursors move the roller by a quarter-line.
- Use [tab] and [shift][tab] to jump forward or back to the nearest tab stop.
- Hold down [esc] for "colour shift", which gives you red text. Or, sometimes, only partly so…
- [shift] and/or [esc] can be locked down by holding one or both and pressing [caps lock] (effectively "shift lock"). Press [caps lock] again to unlock.
- Move the sliders (see "Sliders" below)
- Use the correction paper to erase your mistakes (see "Correction Paper" below)
- Make a dollar sign by overtyping a capital S with a | (vertical bar/pipe)
- Ready? Just start typing, or click here if you prefer:
Even with brokenness set to 0 it's tough going — you can't touchtype as with a computer (or even an electric) keyboard, as it simulates type arms getting snarled up too if you go too fast. I really enjoyed it! It's more fun than any of the focused writing apps I've tried… but I need a "Selectric" typeball edition.
