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It is an amazing thing how some people perform at their best, only under pressure. They usually do quite well in “competitive environments”, and where there’s no pressure, well, they suck, simply out of their natural element ;-).

Now, if you’re one of those individuals, also as an Ubuntu user, looking for a way to improve your typing speeds and searching for a tool that challenges you a bit, then you might wanna try “Typespeed”. It’s a console based simple game where words “fly” around from your left side to the right, and before they reach the right-edge (where they get deleted), you must finish typing them!.

Although at first it’s fairly easy as the speeds aren’t that hard to handle. But the more you type, more words you get and the faster they come (starting with single words then it kinda starts to fill up your terminal window! :D).

It’s actually a bit hard (at least for me), but really fun too (sometimes ;-)).

It’s not what it looks like! 😉 …

But remember, this is not a typing tutor.

Few main features …

*. It has few built in typing modes such as language based words (English, German, Italian, Finnish, Thai etc), C# programming language based ones, Dos commands and Unix/GNU-Linux commands.

*. When the words get closer to the right edge, they change their colors from Green to light Orange, and then turn to Red when they’re about to be deleted.

*. Has a bottom status bar that shows you your current speed (WPM), word count, ranking, mistypes etc.

*. If you find the default speeds are too aggressive, then you can change that by entering “Game Rules” option.

*. Has three built in training modes (default, classic and training). If you want the words to come at a constant speed, then you can choose the “training” under the “Game Rules” (from its main menu, type “6” and press Enter).

*. Also has a dedicated log, that shows you your previous ratings, speeds and few other details.

If interested, you can install “Typespeed” in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by typing the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install typespeed

To load the game, put the below command in your Terminal window.

typespeed

To start it, your Terminal has to has a certain size (80 x 24). The simple solution is to maximize it or, just try resizing (make it bigger) it a bit. Whenever you want to end typing, simply type the “Esc” key and it’ll take you to its main window.

You can navigate the menu using the number assigned before each name (“1” for starting the game, “7” for quitting etc). That’s it, enjoy!.