01
The hero
The name in Bold, dark marker ink on cream paper, beside a speech bubble on a yellow halftone panel.
Chisel-marker hand lettering for dialogue, comics and notes · v1.000
Inkdash
Inkdash is lettering written with a broad marker: a light forward slant, thick and thin strokes from the angled nib, and soft blunt ends. It stays easy to read in a dialogue box and still has a voice when you set it big.
Type tester
Try it with your own words
Type a doubled letter, like eeee or llll: each copy is a different drawing. Switch the alternates off to see one drawing repeated, or pick Bold, the weight of the hero.
18 px
Psst! The key is under the third barrel ★
28 px
Psst! The key is under the third barrel ★
44 px
Psst! The key is under the third barrel ★
72 px
Psst! The key is under the third barrel ★
This preview covers Basic Latin and the comic extras. The full fonts add every accented letter and the rest of the punctuation.
Features
Made for game interfaces
Chisel-marker hand lettering for game dialogue, comics and quest logs, in Regular and Bold, with three drawings of every letter that rotate as you type.
01
Written with a chisel marker
An angled broad nib gives every stroke its thick and thin parts, with a light forward slant and soft ends, the look of real lettering on a page.
02
Three drawings of every letter
Each letter has three versions, and Contextual Alternates rotate through them as you type, so eeee or llll never looks pasted in.
03
Readable at dialogue size
A true lowercase and open shapes keep long lines clear in dialogue boxes, speech bubbles and quest logs, not just in a title.
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Regular and Bold
Regular for dialogue and notes, Bold for titles, names, shouts and buttons.
05
Comic punctuation
An interrobang, double marks, filled and outline stars, a sparkle, music notes and arrows for the beats a script needs.
06
Numbers that hold still
Proportional figures for text, and tabular figures for timers, scores and gold counters.
Built-in icons
Nine icons you can type
Each icon is a character in the font. Click one to copy it, then paste it into anything set in Inkdash.
Doodles
Comic punctuation
Case study
How Inkdash was designed
Why I made it
A lot of game writing is people talking: dialogue boxes, speech bubbles, scribbled notes in a quest log. Set in a clean UI font it loses the voice, and set in a typical comic font it gets tiring after two lines, because those are usually all capitals and bouncing around.
I wanted lettering that sounds like a person and still reads like text, so the same font can carry a whole conversation and then shout a title.
A marker, not a pen
Inkdash is drawn with a chisel marker. The angled nib makes strokes thicker or thinner depending on their direction, which gives the letters their rhythm, and the ends stay soft and slightly blunt instead of crisp.
The letters lean forward a little and keep simple, open shapes, with a real lowercase. That is what lets it work at the size of a dialogue line, where a lot of hand-drawn fonts start to blur.
Three drawings per letter
Real lettering never repeats exactly, and a font that does gives itself away the first time someone types 'Nooo' or 'Hmmm'. So I drew every letter three times, and the font rotates through the three drawings on its own as you type, using OpenType Contextual Alternates.
It needs no setup: Contextual Alternates are on by default in browsers and most apps. Where they aren't supported, you simply get the first drawing every time, and everything else works the same.
The extras
Comics have their own punctuation, so Inkdash has it too: an interrobang, double exclamation and question marks, a filled and an outline star, a sparkle, two music notes and arrows, all drawn with the same marker.
Both weights have 378 characters for Western and Central European languages, and the figures come in a tabular set as well, so a timer or a gold counter doesn't wobble.
In use
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The Photoshop template
The editable hero layout from the download, here with a yellow offset under the letters and a label below.
03
In a dialogue box
A character's line in a game dialogue box over an evening landscape, set at text size and still easy to read.
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Character set
Capitals, lowercase, figures, punctuation, the comic marks and the accented letters of Latin-1 and Latin Extended-A.
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As a quest log
A lined notebook page with ticked-off tasks, open ones and side notes, an arrow and a star typed from the font.
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Three drawings
Repeated letters with and without the alternates, and the row of comic punctuation, stars, sparkle, notes and arrows.
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The details
Regular and Bold, tabular figures for timers, European accents and a speech bubble set in capitals.
What you get
Everything in the download
- Desktop fontsOTF for design apps, TTF for game engines and Windows, both weights.
- Web fontsWOFF2 for both weights, with unlimited web use.
- Game engine packBMFont bitmap fonts (.fnt, .xml and .png atlas) at 32, 64 and 128 px, for Godot, Unity, GameMaker, LibGDX, Phaser, MonoGame and Love2D.
- Photoshop templateAn editable hero layout with live type layers, layer effects and textures.
- README and licenseSetup tips for design apps, websites and game engines, and the full license.
License
Included with every purchase
- Games and apps, embedded for unlimited copies sold
- Logos, merch, videos, streams and print, with no limit on sales
- Installed on unlimited computers: yours, your team's and your company's
- Websites, with unlimited page views and traffic
Ask me first
- Products where customers type their own text in the font
- Resale in asset packs, templates or font collections
Please don't share or resell the font files. For anything the license doesn't cover, email me. idris.hadjoudj@gmail.com
FAQ
Before you buy
How do the three drawings work?
They use Contextual Alternates (calt), which is on by default in most apps, browsers and engines, so the letters change as you type with nothing to set up.
Will the letters vary in my game engine?
In engines that apply OpenType features, yes. Engines that can't switch features on, such as Unity's TextMeshPro, show the first drawing of each letter every time; everything else works normally.
Can I use Inkdash in a game I sell, or for its logo?
Yes. Commercial use is included for games, apps, logos, merch, videos, streams and print, with no limit on sales, and you can embed the fonts and bitmap fonts in games and apps for unlimited copies. Products where your customers type their own text, and resale in asset packs, need an extended license: just ask.
Does Inkdash work in Unity, Godot and GameMaker?
Yes. Use the TTF files in any engine that imports fonts, or the included game engine pack: BMFont bitmap fonts at 32, 64 and 128 px for Godot, Unity, GameMaker, LibGDX, Phaser, MonoGame and Love2D.
Can I use Inkdash on my website?
Yes. WOFF2 web fonts are included, and web use is unlimited, with no cap on page views or traffic.
Which languages does it support?
Each font has 378 characters, covering Western and Central European languages.
Is Inkdash part of a bundle?
Yes. Inkdash is in The Complete Font Collection, every font I've made in one download.
Give your game a voice in Inkdash.
Related reading
The thinking behind this
Longer write-ups on the craft this font draws on.
The words in your game: buttons, tooltips, errors and item text
Every string in your game is interface. The button that says OK, the tooltip that describes a stat nobody understands, the error that says something went wrong. These are the cheapest things in the game to fix and among the most expensive to get wrong.
Read the article
Typography for game UI: the part players read under pressure
Interface type is read in half a second, at speed, over moving artwork, by somebody who did not come to your game to read. Almost every rule that applies to a book works against you here, and the fixes are specific.
Read the articleMore fonts
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