ype:Rider is a new piece of typographic edutainment that’s recently been released by Cosmografik. I thought I’d give it a go to see if it any good. I’m not much of a games player, however, as a graphic design educator I’m always keen to see if something like this could be of use to my students. First impressions of this are quite good. The player is represented by a colon, and the object of the game is that you work your way through a series of atmospheric typographic landscapes, obstacles and puzzles in order to complete each level. The accompanying sounds are equally atmospheric.As you progress through each level, there are oportunities to find out about the history of type and printing.

The overall look of the game is great, although I’m playing this on an iPhone so some of the typographic information is a bit small. I also found that when I got wrapped up in the game I stopped paying attention to the informative bits.  It is just a bit of fun but if it’s enjoyable and gets people reading about type then that can only be a good thing. The app costs £1.99 and the game is also on Facebook.