Releasing Less is Morse, a Minimalist Morse Code Trainer

Today, I released a game I’ve been thinking about for a long time. It’s a program for learning or practicing Morse code reception. While I initially conceived of this as a more traditional gaming experience, and even built a prototype with arcade space shooter mechanics, the plan changed along the way. What I ended up with was a minimalist control panel that offers several options for players with different levels of familiarity with the code.

Training vs. gaming

I’m far from the first person to build an educational “game” for Morse code. The idea dates back decades. One of the longer-running efforts is Fabian Kurz’s Learn CW Online site, which still offers several interfaces for code learners of all levels. Those programs can work, but I’ve found most of them tedious. What I wanted was a simple game that could teach someone the code from scratch, or provide drills for experienced Morse operators to increase their speed.

The original space shooter prototype I built was a sort of tower defense design: enemies spawned at the edges of the screen and came toward the player’s ship in the center. Each enemy sent a Morse character group or word, using both audio and a blinking light. Entering that code on the keyboard, then “firing” with the spacebar, caused that enemy to disappear - it was going to blow up in the final game.

That design highlighted some major limitations inherent to the subject. First, since Morse code needs to be heard and/or seen, I couldn’t include other audio or visual effects that would drown out the enemy codes. So no music, and no overly flashy explosions. Second, I had to let each enemy ship appear and finish sending its code before introducing the next one. For a moderately skilled player, this meant there was seldom more than one ship visible at a time. Together, those two limits gave the game the look and feel of the world’s most boring arcade game.

Accessibility challenges

I also wanted the game to be accessible, in the sense that people who don’t necessarily consider themselves “gamers” would be willing to give it a try. That, and the lackluster look and feel of the initial prototype, led me to the version you see now.

Initially I thought about making it look like a spaceship control panel, with visually realistic buttons to push and knobs to turn, but the more I played with the design, the more I liked the idea of an abstract, minimalist interface. Other than a brushed metal texture for the background, the final game is all geometric shapes and simple text labels. The focus is on hearing and seeing the code being sent.

Instead of a traditional score, there’s feedback on accuracy and response time, and a light that indicates right or wrong responses. You can play it like a game, but you make your own rules. How long can you maintain 100% accuracy? Can you keep your response times under 1 second? How many levels into one of the longer word lists can you get while keeping accuracy over 90%? Play it your way.

This also avoids the “train to failure” pattern many Morse tutorial programs follow. On LCWO, for example, speed drills are set to accelerate until the player starts getting things wrong, then slow down slightly. Keeping the challenge right at the edge of the player’s ability can work, but it’s also frustrating. There’s no sense of mastery, just an endlessly receding goal line.

Instead, Less is Morse blinks a red light to let the player know they erred, then puts an extra copy of that word or character into the current array of possible codes, making it more likely to come around again. When the player gets it right, the extra copy is removed. You get more practice on your weak areas, but also get a sense of accomplishment when reception becomes easier. Want more of a challenge? Bump the speed up - it’s manually controlled.

But is it fun?

One of my other major goals was to build a game I would want to play again and again. When my programming sessions started pausing for long periods so I could “do some more testing,” I knew I was on the right track. Maybe other people will find it as fun as I do, maybe not, but by setting my own enjoyment as the standard, I got something that at least one person will like.

Because of the way I built the game, it should also be easy to add more content. I’m already envisioning modes that send various radiosport contest exchanges, callsigns, and random character strings. I’m open to other suggestions as well.

If you play Less is Morse, please let me know how you like it. The game is free, and I’d especially like feedback about how the HTML version plays in different browsers, and whether the Windows desktop application works properly.

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