If you haven’t played Kern Type yet, you’re in for a treat – released by Mark MacKay in 2011, it’s a delightful browser game that teaches you the art and the math of text kerning:

If you have played it, you’re still in for a treat, as MacKay under the Method of Action label released a few similar games since:

• The Boolean Game (2019)
• The Bézier Game (2014)
• Color: A Color Matching Game (2012)
• ShapeType: A Letter Shaping Game (2011)

They’re interesting not just because you can explore the feel of visual, typographical, and color craft by play – but also because they’re also really nicely made explainers. Here, you can learn things, but also learn about making things that teach things.

For example, I liked the thoughtful onboarding, animations, and sound design of The Boolean Game, the keyboard navigation in Kern Type, and this general idea present in a few games that it’s fun to learn by fixing slightly broken things, rather than starting from scratch.

As far as I can tell, MacKay also occasionally revisits the older games, so Kern Type today might feel much better than when you played it last. MacKay also vibecoded a quick aspect ratio game, and is thinking of a new game to teach text editing, which excites me to no end.

I added a new tag to Unsung, #explainer, to cover explainers and playgrounds like these.