Typography is becoming increasingly popular to the point that everybody has a strong opinion about Comic Sans and that nobody would ever think of using Calibri to write a document in Word. It was only a matter of time before a game exploit the diversity offered by fonts. In Type:Rider, the colon you incarnate will take you through the history of typography. Level after level, you will discover the story behind Garamond, Baskerville, Helvetica and many more famous fonts. The letters are beautifully integrated into each level and become obstacles your colon must bypass or roll on to complete the level. The game is actually so well-executed that you can actually enjoy it even if -god forbids- you do not care for typography. For those of you who do care, the pages you collect along the way will form an informative ebook about the history of typography. We asked a few questions to Théo Le Du, aka Cosmografik, the creative director and game designer of the game, about the origins of the game and his stance on the world’s most hated font. 
How did you first get the idea of a game based on typography?
The idea of a typographic video game did not come overnight, it is actually a project initiated 5 years ago. Back in 2008, during my training as a printer at Estienne, the Graduate School of Arts and Printing Industry of Paris, I was working on a simplified version of a motocross Flash game to which I added letters as the playground. Then in 2010 came the first ArtGame Weekend where I met Charles Ayats (level designer for Type:Rider). We prototyped a game together in 48 hours. And finally in 2012 was the end of the year project made with students from the Gobelins School of Animation. At that point we started researching the history of typography and we signed a development agreement with the two producers of the game, Arte and ExNihilo.
How did you manage to make a colon look so cute and lovable?
It deforms itself, leaves trails of dust and each dot cannot survive without the other. The two dots are also slightly different so they can be distinguished. It was a real challenge for us to make the colon alive and endearing so the player can identify with these two typographic dots.
What is your favorite font?
I love Futura a lot, perfectly formed letters made from geometrical shapes. It exists in different weights and can be used in a wide range of scenarios. I also have a weakness for Trajan, a font very similar to the original Roman alphabet. And I have to add Didot, a beautiful font from the 17th Century.
What is your position on Comic Sans?
I’ve been asked so many times if we would include Comic Sans in the game. In the end, I let myself be tempted and we really had fun on this level. Besides the game, this whole Comic Sans MS story makes me laugh, the font has become so popular that we can no longer combat the invasion, so I just stopped fighting against the font.
Type:Rider, Arte/Ex Nihilo, available on iOS and Android but also as a Facebook social game that lets you create your own level as well as an interactive installation mixing video projection and video game.