Keyfolk

For people who hunt-and-peck and want to learn to touch type, but found typing drill apps boring or frustrating.

Keyfolk teaches touch typing through memorable stories and fill-in-the-blank practice. You learn each key through a character instead of a drill.

The goal is to learn to type without shame, a chapter at a time. Play one between meetings or spend an afternoon in the story. It keeps your place, so stopping costs you nothing. Accuracy and finishing the story matter more than beating a scoreboard.

The characters

Every key in Keyfolk is taught through a fictional character. You learn A because Alice is there, Z because Zorro arrives, Q because Quasimodo needs you. Each character's story is woven into the lesson so the key sticks through meaning, not repetition.

These characters come from works that have shaped storytelling around the world. Many of the originals are in the public domain and freely available on Project Gutenberg:

Creative license

Keyfolk is an educational game rather than a retelling. We adapt these characters for a modern audience by updating language, compressing timelines, and sometimes giving them new scenes that the originals never had. Our versions are inspired by the source material but are not faithful reproductions.

Xio, the exile on the X key, is an original character, drawn from no prior work.

If a character or tradition here is important to you and we have mishandled it, we would like to hear from you. Reach out on Discord or through the contact links below.

Character portraits

Each character's portrait is cropped from a work of art in the public domain. We are grateful to the artists, photographers and engravers who made them, and to Wikimedia Commons and the Internet Archive for preserving them. Every link opens the source file with its rights statement.

All of these works are in the public domain. The D'Artagnan portrait is released under the Creative Commons CC0 dedication by Paris Musées. Portraits are cropped to a circle around the face. Nothing else about the originals has been altered.

Who makes Keyfolk

Keyfolk is made by Williamson Consulting Services, an independent software studio in the Coachella Valley, California. One developer builds the product. The design and marketing work around it is commissioned from independent contractors who do this for a living.

It is a small operation, and we would rather say so than sound like a bigger company than we are. Real people read what you send us. If you have a question about the product, the writing, or how we work, reach out on Discord or through the links below.

The Keyfolk name, this site, and the original story writing belong to Williamson Consulting Services or its licensors. Characters and artwork adapted from the public domain are credited in the sections above. Our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy state the full position.

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