Charcoal

by ion-programming

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.95

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.52

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.38

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.10

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.76

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.55

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.74

Coolness★★★★★★★★★★45%

IF GAME DOESN'T LOAD, MAKE SURE YOUR JAVA IS UP TO DATE (7u45) ###

Plot:

In charcoal, you play as an escaped prisoner trying to make his way out of the dungeons below a great and powerful castle.

You must avoid traps as you navigate through the maze of the dungeon walls, there is a catch though... You only have one torch...

One torch worth of light, that's all you get, so move quickly and carefully and try to escape.

There's a timer to help you stay on top of things, and a compass to give you an idea of where to head.

Good Luck!

Controls:

WSAD - Move around

M - Bring up minimap

Comments17

01rafael17 Dec 2013, 03:59

Do you have a web version?

incobalt17 Dec 2013, 04:09

Sadly, the game crashes rather randomly (Windows 7). It could just be Java. I had it crash once near the beginning of the game and once later on (I saw the exit!).

nikev17 Dec 2013, 04:17

Running the jar on win8 and it exits immediatly

stvr17 Dec 2013, 04:18

Solid concept, well executed. Really the biggest downfall is the sounds. The walk sound is like a robot, and the "creepy" sounds are a bit grating.

IonProgrammingauthor17 Dec 2013, 04:35

Nope, no web version. Planning to target web next time around. And these crashes are to to with some sort of memory leak in javafx (for sounds), Ill look into it and maybe fix it if I have time.

As for Win8, I'll take a look as to why that's happening...

IonProgrammingauthor17 Dec 2013, 04:42

Updating Java to the latest version (7u45) fixes issues on win 8 for me...

WojWorks17 Dec 2013, 04:48

Sounds were kind of annoying, like the puzzle you had at the very beginning. Sadly crashed before I could complete it. I'd say this is rather decent, keep trying to improve.

Seigeengine17 Dec 2013, 05:21

Pretty decent idea. Seemed to work fine. Enjoyable, looked nice, sounds were a bit funky, but didn't bother me.

scott6417 Dec 2013, 05:46

Good but since it required java 7 I had to run it on a slower computer (that had java 7 on it) which droped the frame rate.

kidder17 Dec 2013, 05:48

I like the ambiance, with the sound and lighting. Brutally long maze, too. :)

Venks17 Dec 2013, 18:38

Sadly enough won't run on Win8

Nelien17 Dec 2013, 18:54

Doesn't want to run. Win8 64bit over here :(, tried a few things (compat settings etc., but nothing). Will check back in a while to see if there's a fix.

IonProgrammingauthor17 Dec 2013, 23:47

If it doesn't load, run the jar and make sure java is up to date, worked with that on my win 8 machine

MadcoreTom19 Dec 2013, 10:51

GRATE game (see what i did there?)
I didnt manage to finish it (fell in a hole after wandering for ages). It is such a big maze, I would have liked a checkpoint, or doors that lock behind me, to limit my wandering. More variation in the tiles would have been nice too

TheStolenBattenberg20 Dec 2013, 10:48

A little confusing, but I suck at puzzles so... :3
It's a nice concept and it's well done.

joppiesaus30 Dec 2013, 10:32

Nice. Not buggy, awesome sounds. The sounds are the best of all I think. It helps the mood really well.

Moosefly6 Jan 2014, 14:28

The exe didn't work, but atleast the jar-file works. Or atleast it starts. The game did crash after playing for a while (I might've even been close to getting out!).

Walking down was tedious since I couldn't really see ahead of myself, but the game was pretty decent overall. I don't think the "spooky laugh" helped the mood though, just the ambient track (with rats and water drops or something) would've worked nicely imo.

Nice game overall, too bad it crashed.

Other games by @ion-programming

★3.89

Gombledeens Great Adventure

★3.00