Shadow of the Erdtree is the FromSoftware game on everyone’s minds, but if you, like me, aren’t an Elden Ring person, you can experience some of the game’s punishing difficulty in FromSoft Word, a recent browser-based typing game by Woe Industries that bills itself as “the Dark Souls of word processors.”
Unlike other typing games that give you prompts to copy, opening FromSoft Word presents you with the truest cosmic horror: a blank page. You can type whatever you want, accompanied by dramatic music and sword-slashing sound effects. The catch is that if you make a typo, the game ends and all your work is deleted.
I thought at first that this openness would be easy–I’m not going to purposefully choose words I can’t spell, right? But after playing for a while, I think it’s actually what makes the game so hard. I either got into an overly-confident writing groove and made a mistake, or all that freedom morphed into pressure not to mess up until I sabotaged myself.
As in its boss battle-heavy namesake, I learned the game's patterns as I played. Putting aside the deeply correct choice that “videogame” is run-ending, I was surprised to find words like “blog” and “screenshot” triggering a game over. FromSoft Word also draws from US English, so no “grey” or “centre.” (Sorry, Luke!) Not knowing what words count as typos could feel unfair, but the mystery adds another layer of tension and difficulty to the game. Should you stick to basic words, or risk the journey to the edges of your vocabulary? For such a simple premise, it’s terrifically compelling, with the temptation of a high score calling me to play it safe while my desire to push the game’s boundaries pulled me inexorably toward failure.
Developer Woe Industries has made a host of other browser games about the horrors of modern life, including a game that’s “Dr. Mario, but the worse your insurance is, the harder this game gets” and a Duck Hunt knockoff where you shoot at open jobs on LinkedIn.
I spotted FromSoft Word thanks to a BlueSky post by writer Grayson Morley, who horrifyingly suggested writing a whole novel in it. I tried to write this blog in it, but ironically, “Erdtree” and “FromSoftware” both gave me a game over.
