Final Sentence is the kind of game that only works on PC. It's sort of cheating to say that because it's a typing game, which means a keyboard is about as optional as breathing, but its weirdness and popularity feel quintessentially PC. It's proven so popular, amassing 785 very positive Steam reviews since its April launch, that developer Button Mash is comfortable straight-up telling players, "Don't buy this game" right now – because it's about to go on sale.
I first learned of Final Sentence from a variety of clips floating around online. It's basically a typing class from Hell, and could probably pass for a stage from Squid Game. Following prompts on-screen, you're incentivized to type as fast as you can, or at least faster than the other guy, but too many mistakes will end with "a revolver loaded with a single bullet at your temple."
The horror-lite presentation does a lot of heavy lifting; you are, ultimately, just typing stuff. But Final Sentence enjoyed a nice little boom online a while back – not as a million-seller phenomenon, but apparently it was enough to generate tens of thousands of sales for Button Mash (according to SteamDB estimates and ol' reliable review math), which is more than many games can hope for.
"I want to make a short announcement about the upcoming sale so those who haven't bought the game yet can save a couple bucks for a coffee or a compressed air duster for your keyboard," the dev says in a recent Steam post. "Seriously, that thing is worth buying to clean years of dust and food crumbs out of your keyboard." It's true. Clean your keyboard, you filthy animals.
Granted, the game is only $10 at full price, so any discount isn't going to be ginormous. But savings are savings, and it's a handy heads up. You can, technically, refund a game through Steam and then re-purchase it at a new, discounted price (provided it's still refund eligible), but this kind of thing can save folks some hassle. I could certainly use this kind of warning more often, as buying a game at full price because I want to play it right now seems to be a reliable trigger for a new sale.
I noticed that this post sparked quite some discussion on the Steam subreddit – a stonking 33,000 upvotes, with one user proclaiming it "the nicest thing I’ve seen on Steam." A few users also rightly pointed out that putting games on sale triggers a wave of purchases since few people pay full price on Steam, and in this case, speculate that encouraging folks to hold off could lead to a larger pool of players for the online mode for Final Sentence.
But with an all-time player peak of 335 according to SteamDB, this feels more like a classical typing game with a small battle royale twist. It's fully playable solo and sports a variety of game mode modifiers and leaderboards.
In fact, it was the free Final Sentence demo that went more viral, with a Steam peak of 2,649 players, and that's translated into solid success and reviews for the full game. Our own Ali Jones was among the countless players stomped in the demo, even.
Valve just hiked the 1TB Steam Deck OLED price to just under $1,000.
