Idol/TYPE - Review

Warning: This review contains some spoilers.

Idol/TYPE is an amalgamation of two different ‘genres’ – the ‘typing’ game, and the epistolary novel. Based upon an earlier game (Mr. Typer) by mike.pr, the gameplay of Idol/TYPE involves typing out a number of short letters that Reijiro writes to Hirae before a time limit (indicated by disappearing pictures of Hirae). Although the time-limit requires the player to be a reasonably proficient typist, accuracy is much more important than speed, as the time penalty for errors is quite heavy. It is also easy to accidentally forget a letter or a space, and end up with a number of errors caused by being out of ‘time’ from the original.

The usual positive features of mikey’s stories are present, including his writing style built from short, emotional sentences, and a surprising and very effective plot twist. Unusually though, this twist is only hinted at in the ‘good’ ending, whilst being fully revealed in the ‘new’ ending. This story also contains the clearest examination of the ‘idol’ or ‘dreamgirl’ themes that permeate several of the other ATP games. As the characters never interact directly with each other, they only understand each other through the images they present in the letters. Consequently, the resulting dialogues perhaps do not portray the true personalities of the characters, but rather the images they aim to present to each other.

The art and music are both integrated into the game very well. The art consists of a number of CGs (no character sprites) that appear as the ‘timer’ for each letter, as well as other pictures that show up at the game over scenes or the endings. Ending 3 (arguable the ‘true’ ending of Idol/TYPE) contains most of the bonus pictures. The music for Idol/TYPE is also very effective – it has a somewhat hypnotic feel, but always remains in the background enough so as not to distract from the typing.

Sadly, there are a few potential downsides to Idol/TYPE. The primary one is the typing-speed issue described above. There has recently been a patch released, which allows for the game to be played with the timer off, although this eliminates the sense of pressure created by the time limit. Consequently, the gameplay component almost becomes redundant, and the game essentially becomes a very short VN. To quote from a PM mikey sent me:

Indeed the point was to maybe even fail once or twice, so that the player absorbs the contents of the letters more and so that there is some meaning behind them - in a normal VN, the text would be 5 minutes of reading, of course. But typing them gives more thought to the words, since typically people think or often rewrite their formulations - this was the intention.

There is no save function (although there is a continue function, which resumes from the dialogue after the last letter typed), so for the player to understand the full story, they are forced to replay the game. Personally though, I found the need to re-read (or ‘re-type’) helped me to understand the content of the earlier letters, in light of the plot twist.

Overall, Idol/TYPE is a very unusual and well made game. Although the format and concept might not appeal to everyone, the themes explored in this game are very important in most of the other ATP projects VNs as well.

Review by Ignosco