Battle Royales. Love them or hate them, you can't deny the impact that they've had on the gaming industry over the past few years. Despite that popularity, the formula hasn't changed much at all and usually offers little room for innovation, not to say that developers haven't tried. Fall Guys is a good example, with its colorful, simple graphics and Wipeout-style minigames, but games like that are few and far between in the sea of FPS Juggernauts like PUBG and Fortnite. I saw the demo for a new battle royale trending online recently: one where there's no guns, no obstacle courses, and no arena. Just you and others stuck in a room. A typewriter in front of you and the barrel of a gun pointed at your head.
So, how would you rate your typing skills?
Final Sentence is the newest title from Polden Publishing, a relatively new game publisher. They focus primarily on indie titles, with a "deep passion" for them, as mentioned on their website. Their games range from the psychological horror title Static Dread: The Lighthouse, to unreleased titles like the co-op restaurant sim Restaurats, with Final Sentence being the newest contender to throw their hat into the ring. .
As mentioned, this game is a battle royale, with lobbies accommodating 40 to 100 players; however, I never saw more than 30 at any given time while playing. The goal is to type sentences on a typewriter as quickly as possible, but if you mess up enough, you're forced to play a game of Russian Roulette, with chances to continue typing if you're lucky. The first person to finish wins the game and gets to live, listening to a symphony of gunshots ring out as your player character lovingly flips off the assassin holding you at gunpoint.
The demo, as it currently stands, is short and sweet, with rounds not lasting much longer than 5 minutes. The gameplay itself is also straightforward, acting a lot like an old typing class, with the first few rounds you play acting as a tutorial before cycling through a selected list of different sentences and references to write out. It helps to set the tone of the game itself and get you comfortable with the limited control scheme, which includes a voice chat option. The voice chat in this game is hilarious, as well. I tend to avoid chatting in online games due to previous negative experiences, but this demo never failed to make me laugh, whether by listening to others or talking with them. The one man screaming, "Shoot me, not her, please!" as I lost a round will never not make me laugh or smirk when I remember it.
The only negatives about the game itself are also limited. The keys sometimes felt like they didn't respond properly or marked me as wrong when I pressed the correct one. It could have been due to the game struggling to catch up with how fast I was typing, but it led to some deaths I felt were undeserved. The audio also needs some tweaking, which can easily be fixed in settings, but it made it difficult to focus since you could hardly hear anything over the sound of the gunshots. That and the sound of the typewriter itself make voice chat incredibly difficult, since you can hardly hear anyone else over the noise. But, as I said, that is an easily fixable issue.
My only other gripe is the lack of a difficulty setting in matchmaking. Some scripts are far easier than others, and, at least for me, it made some matches feel either too easy or like the gap was getting too wide for me to close in on. This seems like a niche complaint, but I do genuinely enjoy the game, and it would be a shame to see it lose its player base due to some matches having a steeper spike in difficulty than the last.
The demo also includes a survey after you close it, proving how dedicated the team is to developing this title into the best it can be, despite any issues you might have while playing. In fact, it encourages you to discuss any issues! Despite not being able to find much about them online, the folks at Button Mash are determined to consider every last detail and player experience, no matter how minor.
I've been playing a lot of demos on Steam as of late, getting a taste for titles that have both been sitting too long in my slowly decaying wishlist and games I see recommended on platforms like TikTok and Twitter/X, with the latter making finding an audience for indie titles that much easier for a lot of developers and publishers. I've mentioned before that game development is a large and arduous undertaking, and trying to make something that stands out is even harder. But, there is an audience for just about everything, and Final Sentence is for those of us who are looking for a new and fresh take on a genre that is seemingly oversaturated and constantly bombarded with new releases and updates every month or so.
Whether you play it just a few times, pour hours into it, or even use it as a form of typing practice, it's worth picking up. It is just a demo right now, but it has a projected release date of Quarter 4, 2025, and I cannot wait to get my hands on it! So, crack those knuckles and type like your life depends on it, because it does.