Coal Adventure Development System

Welcome to the Coal (previously Game Studio) website: see the latest news. (29-07-05)

Current Version: 2.6.1 (30/7/05)

Coal (previously Game Studio) is a package of programs which make, execute and deploy adventure games.

While other adventure game development programs exist, Coal is built to be user friendly, powerful, and most importantly: designed for all computer users. No programming knowledge required! You design the game, the story, graphics, sounds and bring it to life in Coal. Your game is then ready to distribute!

Best of all, Coal is currently free to download and use - no restrictions.

The Coal package includes:

the Builder, which is where you insert sounds, music and graphics, and other required information
the Engine, which runs your game
the Packager, which gathers all the necessary files to make the game work, including the Engine, and packages them together for placing on distribution media along with...
the Installer, which installs all the game files needed onto the end users computer.
Plus, a customisable auto-run program for use on CD distributions, and soon: an updater, for repairing errors.

Games developed with Coal are unpackaged using the Installer, which creates a professional and simple install routine for the end-user.

Coal, and any games built with it, are built to run on PC's running Windows 95+ and NT 3.51+ with DirectX 7 or later installed. Windows XP is fully supported.

Your Coal project consists of smaller pieces that together, make your game. These are:

Rooms: the scenes in which the player stands in and interacts with. These contain objects; items which the user clicks on to perform actions.
Characters: includes the player (also known as the main character, which the user controls) and the people which the player can interact with.
Conversations: a series of topics and dialogue between two or more characters.
Messages: dialogue that the environment displays in response to an action the player has performed. (like a narrator for the game)
Inventory: items which the player can take.
Scripts: where special animations and sequences can be written, without use of code.

The game play works as follows:

In the environment, the player is placed in a room, and can click on the objects within that room to interact with them (eg. an apple). When an object is clicked on, an action menu appears; a list of things the user can do with that object, such as 'look', 'touch' and 'eat'. For each action, there is a corresponding script which runs when the user selects the action. This script may direct the engine to animate the player eating an apple, if 'eat' was chosen. The developer predetermines what happens for each action.

Cast your Vote