Jungle Jump: a free typing game where every key is a leap

How to play Jungle Jump

1. Choose a difficulty and a level, or simply start with Easy level 1-1.
2. Look at the platform in front of Kai: its letter bubble shows the key to press. The word strip at the top shows the whole word.
3. Type that letter and Kai jumps onto the platform. Keep typing the letters of each word, and press the space bar to cross the bridge between words.
4. If you press a wrong key, Kai falls into the water and you lose a heart. Three falls and the level starts again.
5. In timed levels the flood starts rising with your first key: reach the banana tree at the end before the water does.
6. Finish without falls for three stars, then try to beat your speed in words per minute and your score.

The word strip at the top of the jungle shows the word you are typing: letters you have typed turn green and the next one is highlighted. Reading the whole word, not just the next letter, is what fast typists do, so try to keep your eyes on the strip and let your fingers find the keys. Fast typing makes Kai chain his jumps into a sprint, and the game never makes you wait for an animation: you can type as fast as you like.

Controls

• Keyboard: just type. Letters, the space bar and, on Hard, Shift for capitals and the punctuation keys , . ' ? !. Esc restarts the level.
• Phones and tablets: tap the keys of the on-screen keyboard below the jungle. On Hard, tap ⇧ once before a capital letter, just like on a phone keyboard. A connected Bluetooth keyboard works too.
• Phone held sideways: the buttons and counters move to the left so the jungle and the keyboard get the whole width of the screen.
• Keyboard guide: on computers a small keyboard under the jungle shows the finger colours used in the Typing Dojo. You can turn it off in Settings when you no longer need it.

Three difficulties: Easy, Medium and Hard

Each difficulty is a separate journey of 15 levels through the same five worlds, with its own stars and records. Levels unlock one by one, and Settings has an option to unlock everything if you want to jump straight to a challenge.

Easy levels follow the Typing Dojo

Our free Typing Dojo teaches touch typing one pair of keys at a time. The first nine Easy levels of Jungle Jump use exactly the same order, and each level only contains letters you have already learned, with words that use the newest keys as often as possible. Learn a step in the Dojo, then come to the jungle and use it in real words. The bubble above the next platform has a small coloured dot that shows which finger types it, with the same colours as the Dojo.

Five jungle worlds

Timed levels: beat the flood

The third level of every world is a timed level. The countdown starts with your first key, the water rises steadily, and the screen glows red in the last five seconds. The time limit is fair and predictable: it is the number of characters in the level divided by the target speed for the difficulty, plus three seconds. At 25 WPM, for example, you type about 2 characters per second, so a Medium level of 70 characters gives you 37 seconds. A fall costs time as well as a heart, so accurate typing is the quickest way through. Finish early and every second left over adds 10 points to your score.

Jungle Run: the endless mode

In Jungle Run the trail never ends. Words keep coming from the difficulty you chose, the flood water rises all the time and a little faster every minute, and every correct letter pushes it back down. The flood gauge on the left of the jungle shows how close it is. At the target speed of the difficulty you stay level at first; after a minute and a half you need double that speed. The run ends when the water reaches Kai or after three falls, and your best number of words and best score are kept for each difficulty.

Stars, score and typing speed

Score: every correct key is worth 10 points plus a bonus that grows with your streak of correct keys; a word typed without a fall adds 5 points per letter, each banana is worth 50, each star 100, and timed levels add 10 points for every second left. Speed is measured in words per minute (WPM), with every five correct keystrokes counted as one word, the standard used by typing tests. As a rough guide, 15–25 WPM is a beginner, around 40 WPM is a typical office typist, and 60 WPM or more is fast. Accuracy is the share of correct keystrokes. Your best WPM and score for every level are saved, and "Play again" after a win gives you new words for the same level.

Badges and achievements

There are 25 badges to earn. Some come naturally as you play; others reward speed, accuracy, long runs or finishing every level. Open the trophy button in the game to see your progress towards each one.

Why practise with the most frequent words?

A small number of words makes up a large part of everything we read and write. According to the Oxford English Corpus, the 100 most common English words make up about half of all written English. Words like the, and, you, that and have appear in almost every sentence you type. When your fingers know these words as whole movements, instead of letter by letter, your speed rises everywhere: in emails, chats, school work and code comments. That is why Jungle Jump draws its words from a frequency list of about 2,700 common English words and from 100 expressions people use every day, such as greetings, polite phrases and well-known proverbs. Medium sticks to the most frequent words, while Hard reaches further down the list for longer words that train less common letter combinations.

Touch typing tips that help in the jungle

1. Start from the home row. Rest your left fingers on A S D F and your right fingers on J K L ;. The small bumps on F and J let you find them without looking.
2. Use the right finger for every key. Follow the finger colours of the keyboard guide. It feels slower at first and much faster after a few days.
3. Look at the screen, not your hands. Keep your eyes on the word strip and the platforms. If you need to look down, use the on-screen guide instead of your real keyboard.
4. Accuracy first, speed second. Every fall costs time and a heart. Typing a little slower without mistakes is faster than rushing.
5. Keep a steady rhythm. Even, regular key presses beat bursts and pauses, especially in timed levels.
6. Use the opposite Shift key. For a capital typed with the left hand, hold the right Shift, and the other way round.
7. Thumbs on the space bar. Hit the space bar with the thumb that is free, without moving your hands.
8. Practise little and often. Ten minutes a day, a few levels at a time, beats one long session a week.

About the game

Jungle Jump was written from scratch for Util.Ninja as a playful companion to the Typing Dojo. It borrows the feel of the classic side-scrolling jungle adventures, where a hero leaps from log to vine across rivers full of crocodiles, and the spirit of jungle stories going back to Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book of 1894. The hero, Kai, the worlds and the artwork are all original. Everything, from the platforms to Kai's leaf hat, is drawn live in your browser on an HTML5 canvas, and the sounds are made with the Web Audio API, so the whole game loads in one small page.

Frequently asked questions