The Typing of the Dead (Dreamcast) – European Keyboard Compatibility Patches

Overview

These patches improve compatibility with UK and German keyboard layouts when playing the USA version (v1.004 GDI) of The Typing of the Dead on the Sega Dreamcast.

Background

The Typing of the Dead was officially released on Dreamcast in Japan and North America, but never in Europe. As a result, the game was only designed to work correctly with keyboard layouts for those regions.

When using a European keyboard, many keys may be mismapped or unresponsive—especially special characters and punctuation. This can make gameplay difficult or frustrating.

What These Patches Do

These patches modify the game’s internal keyboard mapping tables to better match common European keyboard layouts, specifically:

• UK (British) layout
• German (QWERTZ) layout

This allows for more accurate and familiar key input when using these keyboards, hopefully improving usability and accessibility.

🔧 Patch Details

UK Layout Patch Notes

• Patch filename : Typing of the Dead, The - UK Keyboard.dcp
• The main game is mostly playable with a UK keyboard even without the patch, as there are relatively few layout differences. However, some special characters in the Training games may be difficult to input without it, making the patch especially helpful in those cases.
• The UK # key (located above the right Shift key and to the left of the Enter key) does not exist on US keyboards, and although it has been mapped in the patch, it remains non-functional in-game. As a workaround, the # symbol is also kept on Shift+3, and the £ symbol has been omitted, as it is unlikely to be needed during gameplay.

German Layout Patch Notes

• Patch filename : Typing of the Dead, The - DE Keyboard.dcp
• German-specific characters such as Ä, Ö, Ü, and ß do not function in the game, even when mapped. These have been substituted with their non-accented equivalents (A, O, U), and ß is omitted entirely.
• The = key does not function in its standard German position. This may be due to the game expecting it not to be used with Shift, but that is speculation and the exact reason is unknown.
• All required keys for gameplay are patched, with one exception: the German #/' key (“Hash"/"Apostrophe”) does not exist on US keyboards, and while the patch attempts to map those characters to it, the key remains non-functional in-game. As a workaround, # is kept on Shift+3, and the apostrophe ' is moved to the key left of Backspace, which is known to work reliably, but may be unfamiliar to you. On a recommendation I also mapped apostrophe ' to Shift+ä (just one key to the left), as it is similar to the intended location and may be helpful for muscle-memory.

French (AZERTY) Layout Patch Notes

• Patch filename : Typing of the Dead, The - DE Keyboard.dcp
• Very special thanks to Hinoroni who has submitted an updated version of their AZERTY patch to be included in this repository. Hino says:
• • I reordered the layout to maximize the number of special characters. I replaced é, è, ç, and à, with their 3rd characters.
• • I also moved:
• • • . to §
• • • # to ^
• • • % to ¨
• • • % and . sometimes come in arcade mode and # often comes in drill mode so they needed to be reassigned.
• [, ], {, }, +, =, <, > and \ are left unassigned but I don't think they are used outside of training mode.
• @Hinoroni's original xdelta patch for AZERTY keyboard layouts is also available from the Dreamcast-Talk Forum if you prefer to use it.

📎 Patch Information

• Patch format: .dcp (Dreamcast Patch File)
• Base version required: USA v1.004 GDI
• Patching tool: Universal Dreamcast Patcher

Installation Instructions

1. Obtain a clean GDI dump of the USA v1.004 version of The Typing of the Dead.
2. Download and install Universal Dreamcast Patcher:
   ➤ https://github.com/DerekPascarella/UniversalDreamcastPatcher
3. Open your GDI folder in the patcher.
4. Select either the UK or German .dcp patch file.
5. Apply the patch.
6. Use the patched version with your preferred Dreamcast setup (e.g., emulator or ODE).

📌 Notes & Limitations

• These patches only affect keyboard input mappings as well as removing the game's region lock.
• No other game content has been modified.

Alternatives

• The PC version of "The Typing of the Dead" includes a setting to choose between US or UK keyboard layouts

👤 Credits

• Patch Author: Widge
• Patching Tool: Universal Dreamcast Patcher by Derek Pascarella
• Special Thanks: to @Hinoroni for their wonderful post at the Dreamcast-Talk Forum in which they identified the part of the binary that needed altering to make these patches.