Mario Teaches Typing is an educational video game that is designed for teaching typing skills of children. It was published and developed by Interplay, with an official license from Nintendo. It was released for MS-DOS in 1991, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh in 1995, and a follow-up entitled Mario Teaches Typing 2 was released in 1996. It features the Mario characters of Nintendo fame. Charles Martinet is often erroneously credited as the voice of Mario in this game, who is actually done by Ronald B. Ruben^[1].

Profiles

Mario Teaches Typing had selectable profiles. Players could input their name, their WPM (it was automatically set, but could be changed), their character, and what mode they were on.

Game mechanics

Playable characters

There were three selectable characters: Mario, Luigi, and Princess Toadstool. They all played the same and were, for the most part, eye candy for the player. There was one major difference, however. In the Outdoor world, the character would break blocks as the player typed it in. While Mario and Luigi leaped up to break blocks, Princess Toadstool's blocks were down to her waist, and she broke them by holding her dress and smashing them.

Lessons

There were nine selectable lessons - including Home Row, Top Row, Numbers, Lower Row, among others.

WPM and minutes

The Words Per Minutes setting was automatically set after the first lesson, although this could be changed in the profile menu. After beating a mode, that WPM was raised by 10. If a player was at 55 WPM and beat Outdoors, it would be raised to 65 WPM for Underwater. Additionally, the player could set the minutes he or she played, ranging from 0:30 seconds to 10:00 minutes.

Modes

There were five modes:

1. Mario's Smash-n-Dash (Beginner) - The simplest and easiest mode, it was designed to master individual letters, repetitive keystrokes to remember where each letter was. The character (Mario, Luigi, or Princess Peach) would break block and upturn koopas as the player pressed each key.
2. Mario's Wet World Challenge (Intermediate) - Players practice short words in this mode. The "home row" lesson, for instance, would have words like "rad fad dad lad" to type and practice on.
3. Mario's Tunnel of Doom (Advanced) - Players have to type out full sentences in stacks of three. The character then performs one of two actions after completing a sentence, either moving out of the way as a thwomp drops behind the player or swimming across a sand pit, leaping out as the third sentence is completed.
4. Mario's Expert Express (Challenge) - This is the most difficult and least visual mode. Players had to type out full paragraphs of text without any visual eye candy to view.
5. Mario's Chalkboard - Players can see what lesson they were on, what WPM (Words Per Minute) they were getting, the set time they have been playing, and more.

Each mode had two pairs of hands that signified which finger to use; if the letter needed to type was "A," the left pinky finger would be highlighted.

If a typist made a mistake, the cursor would not advance until the typist entered the correct key.

After the allotted time had elapsed, the exercise would end and be replaced with a chalkboard screen. Players could see their WPM, how many mistakes they made, their accuracy, and the time they set. This was useful for future lessons.

Awards

After passing all nine lessons, players were given an award that they could print out. The award had an ASCII picture of Mario, with "Congratulations" and the mode that they passed.

Reception

Mario Teaches Typing was deemed the tenth worst Mario game of all time by Screwattack.^[2]

References

External links

fi:Mario Teaches Typing