36 Characters Per Second: BLIP's Typing Speech Bubble

There’s one number in the Laser Thief description we stumbled over because it’s so precise: 36. That’s how many characters per second the speech bubble of BLIP, the little robot companion, types. Not “fast,” not “medium” — 36.

A speech bubble made of glass

BLIP doesn’t speak with a recorded voice. He speaks through a glass speech bubble where the text appears letter by letter, accompanied by little robot chirps. All the game’s sounds are generated live in code, by the way, including BLIP’s chirping and giggling. There are no audio files.

What the bubble says ranges from advice to jokes. In the menu, the first tip comes after eight seconds, then roughly every 22 to 35 seconds a random one, for example “Tip: 3 stars = no hits AND beating the par time.” Or, our favorite: “Did you know? I run on 3% battery and 97% enthusiasm.”

Why typing instead of fading in?

A whole sentence that appears all at once is efficient. A sentence that gets typed is a character speaking. The difference is small, but you feel it: the typing gives the text a rhythm, and the chirping alongside it sounds like a robot who’s a little excited while talking.

36 characters per second is an interesting value here. A short line like “Ouch! Back to the pad!” is a good 20 characters and is therefore fully there in well under a second. Long sentences build up over one to two seconds. That’s fast enough that you don’t get impatient, but slow enough that you notice the typing. If the text typed much faster, the effect would barely be visible. If it typed much slower, you’d be standing in the room waiting on the robot.

Readability in the room

The second lovely detail isn’t about time but about space. In a mixed reality game you move through your real room. Flat text hanging somewhere would quickly be crooked, blocked, or seen from behind. According to the studio, that’s why BLIP’s speech bubble:

• Always turns to face you, no matter where you stand.
• Is never blocked by walls.

That sounds obvious, but it’s a deliberate decision. A game that draws lasers all the way to your real walls could also let the bubble vanish behind a wall. Here, readability wins over physics.

One text, many languages

And then there are the translations. According to the studio, there are 16 languages for the interface, from German to Polish to Japanese and Korean. All texts run through a translation layer, and missing translations fall back to English. That means the same typing bubble has to work with very different scripts and sentence lengths. A fixed character speed comes in handy here: a German sentence that’s longer than its English original simply takes a few tenths of a second more.

Short sentences, big effect

Another striking thing is how terse BLIP’s lines are. “YES! Clean getaway!”, “Legendary!”, “Zzzt! That one was sneaky.” At 36 characters per second, shouts like these are there almost instantly, while longer tips in the menu get to build up calmly. The speed stays the same, but sentence length decides whether a comment lands like an exclamation or like an explanation.

Three tiny delights

1. An exact number. 36 characters per second shows someone deliberately set the pace.
2. Chirping instead of a voice. Live-generated robot sounds turn text into a character.
3. A bubble that finds you. Always turned toward you, never behind a wall.

What we’d steal for our own projects

• Treat text speed as a design tool. Whether in an app or a game: how fast text appears says something about whoever’s speaking.
• Readability before realism. When a character has something important to say, their bubble can see through walls.
• Plan for translations. An effect that works per character scales better than one timed per sentence.

Our doodle: an empty speech bubble with a thin shine line, next to it three tiny notes for the chirping. If you want to watch BLIP type for yourself, you’ll find Laser Thief in the Meta Horizon Store.