Waver: A Typing Adventure

It's the bottom of the ninth inning. Or, maybe it's the fourth quarter. Wait, no, I think we're going into a knockout round. Look, I may not know what sport is being played, but clearly the fans in the stadium are having a good time. That's the premise of the rhythm game Waver: A Typing Adventure, a bizarre new release that combines the best elements of Rock Band and Guitar Hero with the fun of being at a sports stadium. It's a game that has somehow turned both typing and the wave into a high-stakes competition of speed and accuracy. That's a silly concept, but will it improve your typing skills? I'll be the referee of that.

I want to take you back to January 4th, 1981, when my home team (the Defunct Losers) seemed poised to win the World Championship Series Prix Cup. With a packed stadium full of spirited fans cheering their team on, you can almost taste the excitement in the air. But while the underdogs showed up and put up a good fight, they were ultimately let down by their fans, who simply didn't cheer hard enough. They lost in a crushing defeat that people still talk about to this day.

Now, four decades later, my home team has a chance to make up for their past defeat. This is their opportunity to prove the world wrong and finally become the undisputed world champs. The die-hard fans of the Defunct Losers aren't going to let history repeat itself, because they are going to get out there and cheer harder than they've ever cheered before. And just in case that isn't enough, they have perfected a new skill that is guaranteed to make all the different. That's right, the fans have learned how to do the wave.

This premise may sound a little iffy, but hear me out. The goal of each level is to successfully do the wave by hitting the corresponding letters at the right time. The camera is always fixated on the audience, which is represented by the 26 letters of the alphabet. With each rotation of the wave, the game will want you to press the button to make the right people stand up and cheer. It starts out simple enough, with the player only needing to hit one or two letters with each rotation, but as we saw with our game against the Limway Yolk forty years ago, the responsibility of hitting the right button can quickly become overwhelming.

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As silly as it sounds, it all makes sense. The scoreboard will keep track of you correctly performing the wave, while the opponents will score every time you miss the right letter. And as the story progresses, you'll begin to see that the sport being played on the field is almost inconsequential. Clearly, the real action was in the stadium, where the fans are racking up big points with combos and score multipliers. Earn enough points and you'll unlock stars, not unlike what we've seen in the countless rhythm games that inspired Waver.

What I like about this admittedly simple concept is how much the game shakes things up from level to level. First-time developer Buried Things does a good job of layer new ideas on the core conceit right up until the final stage. For example, the wave will go the opposite direction when the team goes overseas. There's also a stage where the opposing fans have infiltrated the cheering squad, something that can really mess up the timing. Perhaps my favorite of these shake-ups is when a bunch of random fans have been either abducted or raptured, leaving a lot of empty seats in the crowd. That's the kind of thing that helps to keep this game fresh as you make your way through the short but satisfying story mode.

As both a fan of typing games and Rock Band, I was ready to fall in love with this crazy concept. I dig the retro graphics, the upbeat music and all of the ways the game shakes up the gameplay. And yet, despite seeming to be everything I wanted, I had a hard time getting into Waver. There was something about the timing that didn't click with me, even after playing all of the levels multiple times. It's often hard to tell exactly when you're supposed to press the button, and I found that I missed a lot of letters that I felt certain I hit. And then there are the levels that want you to hit ten or more letters in a single rotation. The game wants you to either have super speed or twenty fingers in order to complete the wave, something that only gets more frustrating in the final stages where they throw absolutely everything at the player.

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As somebody who has been a professional writer for more than twenty years, I would like to think that I'm a speedy typist. I'm sure there are plenty of people faster than me, but I definitely know my way around a keyboard. And yet, I was constantly humbled by Waver. It's one thing to type a word quickly, and quite another to need to hit three or more letters at the same time, almost as if you're playing a musical instrument. I hate to make an obvious point, but just because it's called a keyboard doesn't mean that my Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 is the same as a Casio CT-X700. There's a reason why you only had five buttons in Guitar Hero.

For those who are able to overcome the steep difficulty curve, they'll find a fun and silly rhythm game with a lot of cool ideas. I like that you'll definitely need to work at each stage in order to earn three (or more) stars, and there are some fun goodies to unlock for those who put in the extra work. Couple that with the charming graphics and catchy tunes and you have a goofy experience that takes both typing games and the rhythm genre in a whole new direction. Who knew that cheering on my home team would involve this much typing?