Future Tense

Should We All Be Learning How to Type in Virtual Reality?

Immersive typing!

Image from Lab Coat Studios

Everyone learned typing in school. If the mention of Mavis Beacon, Type to Learn, or Typing of the Dead makes you yearn for a simpler time, feel free to ride that wave of nostalgia for awhile, because your archaic typing fantasy is about to be shattered. Ready? Now you can learn how to type in virtual reality, no ghost hands required.

Those were the days.

Screencap from Video Game Research Lab

Lab Coat Studios created the VR Typing Trainer game for the Oculus Rift. Here’s how it works: Words come at you, and you look at the one you want to target. Then you type it accurately to shoot it down and get points. As the Verge points out, it’s a great way to keep yourself from looking down at the keys if you’re trying to learn to touch type. (Yes, there is a real keyboard—you aren’t typing in the air.)

You keep your hands in position over the keys the whole time and don’t have to move them off to control the game, so you can stay oriented pretty easily. And commenters seem to be enjoying the functionality, like typing “start” to start and “quit” to quit. Typing may seem like a strange application for VR, but someone has to feed our insatiable and unexplainable appetite for typing games.

In the meantime: Type Racer, anyone?