TypeRacer is a multiplayer online browser-based typing game.
TypeRacer was launched in March 2008, and claims to be the first multiplayer typing game on the web.[1] Site users compete by racing miniature cars that advance as the users type short passages of 20 to 100 words.[2] Accuracy is required; any typing errors in words have to be fixed before continuing with the race.[3] The typing passages come from popular songs, movies and books, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, A Clockwork Orange and Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!),[4][5] and can be contributed by users.[6] Some users that achieve typing speeds over 200 wpm have been suspected of being robots, or otherwise cheating, which TypeRacer has taken repeated measures to restrict.[7]
TypeRacer was listed among PC Magazine's Top 100 Web Sites of 2008.[8]
TypeRacer was created by programmer Alex Epshteyn, working on his own, using the OpenSocial API and the Google Web Toolkit.[9] Epshteyn was inspired by teaching himself to touch type with a shareware Windows program that lacked a multiplayer mode. He describes himself as not a hardcore gamer, and had never played other multiplayer typing games such as The Typing of the Dead. He has, however, since been contacted by a former Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing engineer, who expressed approval of TypeRacer.[10] Epshteyn holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from UMass Amherst and was an intern at Google in 2005.[11]