The Typing of the Dead

Welcome to the Typing of the Dead (TotD) SDA Strategy Wiki. It is designed to facilitate new runners who wish to gain the required level of understanding about the game mechanics and routes considered optimal without turning into a full-fledged game wiki, but this will involve disassembling the game a bit. This wiki is currently under heavy construction work and does NOT provide you with all the existing knowledge on the game. Some of the information is also not fully confirmed. If you wish to edit the page, make sure to note if your additions are somewhat speculative, and possibly discuss them on the discussion page or bring it up on the forum thread. Also do this if you'd like to discuss the abbreviations and naming conventions.

Here are a few links to get you started.

General Information

Abbreviations and Naming Conventions (this list might evolve)

TotD - The Typing of the Dead
HotD - The House of the Dead (which TotD is built on)
AM/OM - Arcade Mode/Original Mode
Ch. 1-6 - Chapter 1-6
ZR - Zombie Rank, i.e. which category of word length a particular zombie's word belongs to. Somewhat connected with zombie type.
MinR - Minimum rank for a zombie type.
MaxR - Maximum rank for a zombie type.
WR - Word Rank, i.e. the "ranking" the player gets for each typed word, from A's to E's. Could also be called "Grade".
DL - Difficulty Level, manifests in zombie ranks and/or the time the player is given to type a word.
Life - One of the "braziers" that you have 3-5 of at the start.
Cont NOT USED? - A "continue", which is the same as in many arcade games.
Tranq NOT USED?- A zombie tranquilizer, an item that lowers DL.
A1 - "A" followed by a number refers to an "Attack", also could be called "Wave" or something else. Eventually the whole game might be mapped out with the different pathways and this is an envisioned method of referring to attacks, which are mostly neatly separated by camera movements and cutscenes. So we could have Ch. 1 A4 = the two Davids right before talking to G in chapter 1.
CS/SCS - Cutscene/Skippable Cutscene

The word "word" is used, for simplicity, for the zombie "typable", i.e. abbreviation, word, phrase or sentence regardless of how long or short it is.

Zombie Names

The zombie names are canonical. However, there may be a case for simplifying the taxonomy a bit by combining certain zombie-types into a supertype if their behaviour is similar (i.e. all the small ones that require three words to be typed). Thumbnails will be included later. For now, look at the HotD wiki page for a more verbose description.

This needs a table with spaces for the canonical name, possibly supertype name, thumbnails, and a further description of traits (if deemed necessary). Could be useful to add information about the zombie type's minR and maxR.

Some suggestions for zombie supertype names:
- Small (the ones that take three hits) = Randy, Mickey, Zak, Lance
- Ranged (anything that sometimes throws something at you)= Johnny, Cecil, Bob, Mickey, Ryan, Peter (technically just spawns a Murrer)
- Quick/QTE = Murrer, Moowl, Devilon, Bouere, Mofish, Buyo, Cocoon
- Normal (only melee attack, does nothing special, could also include types that have both ranged and melee attacks) = David, Andrew, Max, Ebitan, Kageo [J], Ken, Keith, Gregory, Ricky, Patrick, Franklin, Eric

David - shirtless with blue jeans, attacks with teeth Andrew - like David, but wears shorts and shirt, attacks with arms? Johnny - two axes held high, may throw them Cecil - throws two axes usually from distances, e.g. window

Max - Two chainsaws Bob - Beer belly, kick attack, throws barrels

Ebitan - rotting, charges up from underwater, three variants?: green, black (stronger?), brown (sudden charge, weak)

Kageo - "Mummy", dark areas, punch attack, pale colour Kageo J - like Kageo, dark green, one eyeball Ken - iron mask, claw-gloves, dark areas

Randy - small, masked, wall-ceiling-climing, leap-scratch attack

Mickey - small, knives, leaps down, may throw knives, moves around a lot

Ryan? (where?) - face bandaged, brown-red vest, throws two golden blades?

Keith - Alligator, underground, tail attack

Gregory - Giant sword

Ricky - Muscular, half-exposed brain, "chauffeur" Patrick - Muscular, military style clothing

Peter - has the parasite Murrer

Zak - small, metallic skin, skully mask, clawed gauntlets, hiding in crawlspaces

Lance - Ch. 5 and 6, small, energy blades, teleport

Franklin - Ch. 6, no-clipping, punch Eric - Ch. 6, pulse sabers for hands

Murrer - annelid Moowl - owl, in singles Devilon - bat, in flocks Bouere - frog Mofish - piranha Buyo - Clock Tower (Ch. 2), parasite ? Cocoon - Clock Tower (Ch. 2), eggsack ?

Which Boss is Which?

Hierophant A - Bridge Hierophant B - Jetty Tower A - Tower B Strength A Strength B

[Possible] Run Categories

Any% - Finish the game as quick as possible
100% - Currently has no common definition, but may involve saving all the citizens and completing every mission among other things.
SS/IL - Ch. 6 is directly selectable in OM after acquiring enough coins from various challenges. This should be done for IL runs because of the dynamic difficulty level.

Game Mechanics

Dynamic Difficulty Level

There is an overarching difficulty level (DL) that adjusts according to the player's skill. It can be observed separately from each particular ZR, but because of the two being intermingled and because of MaxR's and MinR's, this is somewhat difficult. For most speed run categories, purposely lowering the DL should be used to speed up progress.

Lowers the DL

Losing a life?
Using a continue
Finding a tranquilizer in AM
Getting WR's below C? (likely, but not entirely understood)

Increases the DL

Effect of WR's on DL

Effect of Continues on the DL

Effect of Tranquilizers on the DL

Zombie Ranks

Speedrun-Relevant Items

Speed Running Strategies

Optimal Overall Route

Chapter 1

Miscellaneous

Wishlist

A bot/hack that allows automatic typing of words at a given pace. E.g. infinite "Golden Hands"-items would be useful. Also if the game can one day be emulated, though Hourglass currently does not support TotD.