I’ve tried to play twice now and I’m always stuck on the first word, no matter what I do it won’t go through and I’m just stuck in there for the game’s length.
I’m keeping in mind punctuation and everything, it just will not register anything I type.
Edit: The issue is due to using an IME keyboard. If you try to play, even if your IME keyboard is set to Alphanumeric, you can’t type anything at all.
I had it work for a while but now it’s back to not working again. 
Back to not working at all again.
Don’t know what could be causing it. This is a new computer too.
In fact, it seems to make my keyboard lag on my entire OS by sometimes a full 10 seconds.
Edit: I figured out the issue, it’s because I was using an IME keyboard. My default language is Japanese and I just have it defaulted to English because it’s easier to switch languages that way. I had it set to Alphanumeric though, so it shouldn’t have mattered. But that explains everything.
Can confirm issue still persists on 0.18.0.0 (build 15298677). I normally use a Japanese IME set to alphanumeric mode for the majority of my keyboard’s use, which works fine in every part of the game (including text chat or any other text boxes) except Typing Derby. Setting my keyboard back to US English allows control of Typing Derby.
I can confirm this bug still happens on 0.18.2.0 (16089101)
Hey! I think I may be having the same issue. I’m not all that technically knowledgeable so if you’ve managed to fix it could you please tell me how. We appear to have very similar keyboards if that helps
This bug is still present after the last Bug FIxes update (0.18.3.0). The game should at least deny you from playing typing derby if you try to play it on an unsupported keyboard instead of softlocking the player and having them stare at the screen for few minutes.