Two years ago, we [[http://eldarion.com/blog/2009/11/06/typewar/|launched]] what has turned out to be one of our most successful sites, [[http://typewar.com/|Typewar]]. In the last couple of weeks we've been rolling out a major new aspect to the typeface-identification game: [[http://typewar.com/quests/|Quests]].
Until now, the gameplay in Typewar has been a set of questions taken from whatever typefaces and characters have been unlocked by leveling. While this was undoubtedly addictive, a lot of people wanted to test themselves on more typefaces from the beginning, or fewer typefaces in more focused tests. This is where Quests come in.
Quests are like a subset of Typewar just played with a restricted set of typefaces and/or characters. A great example is [[http://typewar.com/quests/quest/11/|Arial vs Helvetica Neue]] (available not only in a version focused on the glyphs that are actually distinct but, for the gamblers, one that includes a random selection of any characters, even if identical!)
The recent discussion about the relationship of Android's new Roboto typeface to Helvetica inspired the [[http://typewar.com/quests/quest/12/|Roboto vs Helvetica Neue]] quest. As well as quests pitting two typefaces against one another we have things like the [[http://typewar.com/quests/quest/4/|Serif Showdown]] with letters from eight different seriffed typefaces. We also have quests focused on a particular letter such as [[http://typewar.com/quests/quest/6/|Q]] or [[http://typewar.com/quests/quest/2/|O]].
We plan on rolling out new quests regularly and are looking for feedback on the types (no pun intended) of quests to do next. One area we'd like to explore is quests focusing on a particular type designer or foundry. We'd love to work with designers and/or foundries to make that happen.
But in the mean time, try out the quests we've started off with. Points earned during quests count towards your overall score (which will also level you in the main game) and there are a new set of badges to earn as you play more quests!
And be sure to follow [[http://twitter.com/typewar|@typewar]] on twitter!