Gameified Productivity Tools for Writers

S.R. Beaston

Crafty with words, wit, and wisdom, just add caffeine to make it more interesting.

When it comes to the internet, there are plenty of tools at a writer’s disposal. Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming to find the best one for you. Using tools that are catered towards your taste and hobbies has never been so simultaneously difficult and easy to find. 
As a ‘gamer’, I tend to navigate to gamified tools to help with productivity in writing. There are plenty of them out there, especially on the phone, but those don’t really feel like games to me. Getting rewarded for my time and effort, or seeing actual progress in my spelling, typing, or my manuscript, is the ultimate goal for games targeted for productivity. If you are also a writer who plays games, this list might be for you.
Here, we’ll focus on PC centered games (mainly on steam) that are great to help your productivity and writing. Prices will be in USD only, but steam adjusts prices based on your region. The demos provided may not be offered for long, so test them out while you can.
TypingBeing able to type is important. If you are new to writing your manuscript with a keyboard or perhaps a younger writer, these games can help with muscle memory and speed, all of which helps with productivity.
CozyTyper ﻿$ Demo$ ﻿
Location: Steam
Price: $4.99
Cozytyper is a fun and relaxing way to improve your typing skills. Focusing on accuracy and speed, the game informs you the moment you mistype and allows you to correct yourself without the pressures of a timer or distracting backgrounds. 
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This game gives a good amount of quotes and phrases, cycling through them at random so you cannot anticipate what’s to come, but never making it so difficult it becomes frustrating. (That is, unless you are like me and want to get all the achievements.) 
Drak(c)ulaDemo: Steam
Location: Steam
Price: $7.99
This typing game allows you to write the horror novel Dracula from beginning to end. That’s it. Simple yet brilliant.
The word you are supposed to type is highlighted, keeping your focus on it without losing track. The novel is also just old enough and oddly written that you will be typing words you aren’t used to as well as using keys you may not normally use. This is a genius novel to turn into a game.
Your progress will be tracked at the bottom, kind of like a kindle informing you how far into a book you’ve gone. To the left, you are shown the words per minute and word streak without mistakes, giving a little incentive to get the highest score.
You also get to read Dracula if you haven’t already. Bonus.
Touch Type TaleDemo: Steam
Location: Steam
Price: $19.99
By far the most fun I’ve ever had with a typing game, Touch Type Tale is a true gaming experience while warming up your fingers and getting your brain active. 
You are Paul, an orphan boy who runs off to help the local wizard from time to time. In the wizards possession is a gadget Paul has never seen before, a typewriter. With it, Paul (the player) can command armies, grow crops, and mine gold by typing the words and letters prompted.
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Despite how fast paced it is, it doesn’t feel overwhelming and the tutorial is simple and clean. One of my favorite typing games that I wouldn’t have found if I wasn’t doing research for this article.
Map EditorMap editors, in this context, is any game that allows you to adjust, create, build, and move items, structures, or land. Sometimes they are also tagged as ‘level editors’. Here are a few games that allow you to get a feel for what your world, town, home, or room may look like, give or take. 
Dungeon AlchemistDemo: Steam
Location: Steam
Price: $44.99
Used to help dungeon masters create maps for their tabletop campaign, Dungeon Alchemist is a great level editor that can build far more than dungeons. 
The assets in this game span several eras of time and can easily combine with the fantasy settings (as it is an RPG map builder). This game can help you build the ideal tavern and inn, castle, cozy home, or underground dungeons that you may want to visualize for your story.
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The learning curve is a little steep, but with automated generations based on your requests, the game is programmed to help you get a good head start on what you want your space to look like. 
If you suddenly decide the dungeon should be a garden, one quick click can rebuild the foundations for you to then add, remove, or change to your desire. 
Since the price is a little high for the average writer and gamer, I only tried the demo. The demo locks you out of a lot of options, but I was still able to build an awesome Inn that I pictured for chapter three of my novel. I implore you to try it if this seems like a useful tool to help with description and locations.
Tiny GladeDemo: None
Location: Steam
Price: $14.99
Another historical and fantastical tool, Tiny Glade is a cozy, easy to use building game where you focus on the exterior atmosphere. It’s great for dioramas, size comparison and organizing where structures go. Tiny Glade has been an overwhelming success for all players and several writers I know. 
Though you can’t create the details of the interior, you can build one cozy cottage or a whole town full of buildings and stalls. Make the perfect gardens and pathways with rolling hills or flat plains of green. 
The Sims 4Demo: None
Location: Steam, EA app, Epic Games
Price: Base game is free
So if you are a gamer, you are likely as sick of EA as I am, but I have to admit, their sims games do allow your creativity to be the only limitation when it comes to building, provided you cough up the money.
For those unfamiliar, it is the top simulation game for both characters and structures. You can simulate the character you create, making choices you either would or wouldn’t do yourself, have a career, have a family, drown them when you block off the pool with a wall since they fixed the ladder-delete glitch. 
You can also build any structure you want in any manner you want, provided, again, that you pay for the specific DLC to get those items in the game.
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The base game is free on Steam, the EA store, and Epic Games. Unfortunately, the base game doesn’t come with a lot of options. This is where you have to be a little computer savvy. 
Through sites like Curseforge and The Sims Resource, you can download hundreds of base game mods that will skin over or add certain items to your game. You can also go crazy with sims customization like different hair, clothes, eyes, etc. Warning, I have spent days doing this in the past, so it’s not the most conducive if you have a timeline to get your novel done. 
EA also allows bundles and a lot of the packs go on a steep sale several times a year, as the base game is ten years old. I don’t care to give EA any more money though, so I vote for using the mods. 
All of that said, this unfortunately IS the best game for building structures and characters to get information and understanding of everything for your novel, be it description, size, atmosphere, finalizing how you want that certain room to look, anything. Just keep track of the time spent on this game or you’ll never finish that novel. 
Productivity TrackersI think it’s only fitting to talk about productivity games after spending so much time not writing. These games are idle, focus driven apps that do less in terms of interacting and more as an incentive and motivation to get your work done. 
Virtual CottageDemo: None
Location: Steam
Price: Free
A staple on our blog posts, Virtual Cottage is a prime example of a simple and easy productivity management game. There is an avatar you can ever so slightly adjust in a cottage you do not customize, playing soft, relaxing music. 
Here you have a timer, a to do list, and several options for weather, fire, and nature sounds and a few weather visuals. This is all about the goal of reminding you you have work to do, and it will let you know when your break is coming up. 
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Cozy TimeDemo: None
Location: Steam
Price: $2.99
Similar to Virtual Cottage is Cozy Time. This game allows you to slowly gain points to purchase minimal decorations like a different window frame, different bed, a dog instead of a cat, etc. Accompanied with a cute cat timer on the right and a to-do list on the left, it is one of the more simplistic productivity games.
The thing I like more about this one, however, is the use of a calendar, which helps you track the days you’ve used the app and what for. The calendar goes back at least a year, if not more, with all the times you’ve entered in on any given day. 
You can download your own music to customize your experience further, and set the timer to stop all music once it stops for a rest.
Spirit CityThis is the big boy of productivity gaming. It mixes the perfect amount of productivity and gameplay, rewarding you for doing your work with tokens to spend on a myriad of things.
There is a highly customizable avatar, with clothing, accessories, and even a few fantastical features that you can purchase with tokens. The tokens are easily obtainable by simply doing your task (in this case, writing). 
The cottage room is also highly customizable, with different sections for you to work at, be it on the bed, at the desk, on a bay window, or next to a fireplace. All of these spaces allow you to select decor for certain things and the game is constantly being updated with new items for holidays as they come. 
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The most intriguing incentive to work, however, are the spirits. These cute creatures come about when you do a specific task in a specific environment that correlates with the spirit that will find what you’re doing interesting. When you’ve enticed the spirit, your Spiritdex will light up, telling you you are in the right place with the right atmosphere for the spirit to show up soon. Keep doing your task, treating the game like any other productivity tool, and eventually a spirit will pop up to be your companion.  
So far there are twenty two spirits to collect while you are whittling down your to-do lists or using the timer to focus on work.
Along with a to-do list and timer, there is a habit tracker and a personal journal. The selected music is lo-fi, but there is the ability to use YouTube through the game to find music for your tastes. 
Honorable MentionsThese games and programs are still worth a glance if you are looking for something more specific, less expensive, or just like to try them all. In no particular order, here are some map editors, typing games, and productivity trackers to try for yourself. I even tossed in a few desktop idle cuteness to spruce up the mundane task of looking at a screen for hours. 
Inkarnate
The Legend of Pomodoro
Chill Corner
Minecraft
Dino Market
Chill Pulse
Capoo Pals
I hope somewhere on this list is the perfect game to push you to productivity, regardless where you are in your writing journey.