"Who has time for Lore?" asks Keymasher Ultimate. "There's no lore!! Only action!!"
I narrow my eyes and nod gravely. The game is correct. I don't have time for lore. Not with all these creeps on my keyboard.
Keymasher Ultimate is a free game about protecting your keyboard from "Seglings," which are little rectangular enemies on tiny two-wheeled scooters. For reasons unknown (there's no time for lore, remember) the Seglings want to roll around on your keyboard and wreck all your keys. Luckily, you have the perfect weapons to stop them: your keys.
Each round, swarms of wheeled creeps flood onto a virtual QWERTY keyboard. When one is positioned over a key on your screen, tapping that key will turn that key into a springboard, sending the creep flying. But there are so many creeps, and quite a lot of keys, that you'll quickly wind up just mashing everything on your keyboard as fast as possible. Keymasher Ultimate isn't just correct about lore, it's also aptly named.
You score points and combos by killing creeps (I am pretty sure every kill except the very first is a combo) and each round you survive gives you a weapon you can assign to the key of your choice. One of those weapons is a nuke, a single-fire screen-clearer that not only wipes all the Seglings off your keyboard but permanently disables the key you assigned it to. Worth it.
Other weapons include airstrikes that strafe your keyboard with rocket fire, mortars that bring an explosive down on the key you launch it from, and bumpers, which chuck packs of Seglings into the air to detonate. Eventually, though, there are simply too many, and they begin breaking your keys, giving you fewer ways to kill them. Once Seglings have saturated your keyboard (there's a meter showing you the breaking point) it's game over. But you can always start again with a clean, fresh keyboard and try to beat your last score, and see how you stack up against other players on a leaderboard.
The only beef I have with Keymasher Ultimate is that the keyboard has no space bar. When I think about frantically hammering a key, it's usually the space bar, and it would be the perfect key to slam when I wanted to call in an airstrike to eliminate a pack of creeps. Other than that, Keymasher Ultimate is satisfying as heck, with colorful explosions and Seglings sailing through the air when you blow them up. A+. Would mash again. Download it free here at Itch.io.
