Gravitype

A terminal typing game where words fall from the sky. Type them before they hit the bottom — miss one and you lose a life.

Built with Textual.

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Requirements

Python 3.9+ (developed on 3.12). Any terminal with 256-colour support.

Install

Gravitype is on PyPI: pypi.org/project/gravitype

The quickest way, which puts gravitype on your PATH in an isolated environment:

uv tool install gravitype

Or with pipx, or plain pip:

pipx install gravitype
pip install gravitype

Then launch it:

gravitype

python -m gravitype works too, if you'd rather not rely on the script being on your PATH.

Running from source

git clone https://github.com/kanakOS01/gravitype.git
cd gravitype
uv sync
uv run gravitype

Features

• Falling-word gameplay with difficulty that ramps up as you score
• Two word categories: Tech and General
• 7 colour themes (Dracula, Nord, Tokyo Night, Gruvbox, Catppuccin, Cyberspace, 80s After Dark)
• Configurable starting lives (3 / 5 / 8) and bell-on-miss sound
• Persistent high score
• Pause, in-game help and keybind reference

How to play

Words spawn at the top of the board and drift down. Type a word and it disappears the moment the text matches — no Enter needed. Points are 10 × word length, and every 150 points bumps you up a level, which makes words fall faster, spawn more often and get longer.

If a word reaches the bottom you lose a life. At zero lives the run ends and your score is checked against the high score.

The input box flashes on a hit, and turns red the moment what you have typed is no longer the prefix of any word on screen.

Keybinds

Menu

Key	Action
ctrl+p / escape	Play / back to menu
ctrl+s	Settings
ctrl+h	Help
ctrl+a	About
ctrl+q	Quit

In game

Key	Action
escape	Pause / resume
ctrl+g	Quit to menu (run is not scored)
ctrl+w	Clear the word being typed

Configuration

Settings are edited in-game (ctrl+s) and stored in ~/.gravitype/, so your high score follows you regardless of which directory you launch from:

~/.gravitype/
  config.json            your settings and high score
  theme_active.tcss      generated stylesheet, safe to delete

Set GRAVITYPE_HOME to relocate that directory — handy for keeping separate profiles, or for trying things out without touching your real save:

GRAVITYPE_HOME=/tmp/gravitype-test gravitype

config.json is plain JSON, so you can edit it by hand if you prefer:

{
    "high_score": 1790,
    "theme": "dracula",
    "sound_enabled": true,
    "starting_lives": 5
}

Unknown keys are ignored and a corrupt file falls back to defaults, so it is safe to delete the file to reset everything.

Versions before 0.3 kept this as a .gravitype_config.json dotfile in the working directory. If ~/.gravitype/config.json does not exist yet, Gravitype reads that dotfile once and migrates your settings forward, leaving the original where it is. An existing ~/.gravitype/config.json always takes precedence.

Project layout

gravitype/
  cli.py                     console entry point
  __main__.py                enables `python -m gravitype`
  core/
    config.py                config load/save + theme compilation
    paths.py                 per-user config and cache locations
    words.py                 word pools and level-based word picking
  tui/
    app.py                   app, screens and game loop wiring
    widgets/
      game_board.py          falling words, collision, scoring
      header.py              in-game score/level/lives bar
      main_header.py         banner and nav tabs
      screens.py             settings, help, about
      table.py               keybind table
    styles/
      base.tcss              layout and component styles
      themes/*.tcss          colour variables per theme

Themes work by concatenation: on startup generate_theme_file() writes the selected theme's variables plus base.tcss into ~/.gravitype/theme_active.tcss, and hands that path to Textual as the app's stylesheet. It is written outside the package so an installed, read-only copy still works, and it is safe to delete — it regenerates on next launch. Adding a theme means dropping a new .tcss of variables into themes/ and adding it to the Settings dropdown.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Credits

Colour themes are inspired by and adapted from Smassh.

License

MIT © Kanak Tanwar