Coal LLC has annoyingly absorbed my entire attention

It doesn't look like much with some of the simplest pixel art around but Coal LLC is a like a black hole that freezes your life when you hit play.

A game that released on Steam back in September and made with Godot, it puts a pickaxe in your hands and tells you to go off and mine coal to fill your ever-increasing quota. Each day brings a new mine layout, so you really have to think through all your upgrades. Starting off ridiculously simple with just you dashing about, as you madly try to mine as much as possible and make it back before the timer is up — eventually it expands into some pretty funny explosive chaos.

Especially good when you start getting into the later days in the game, as you spend your hard-earned cash on a mini army of NPC helpers to get mining with you. Thankfully, they don't seem to mind all the explosive weapons I keep using to make quick work of the blocks instead of mining every individual block by hand.

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There's multiple game modes in it, with the standard mode based on a short timer as you do a mad-dash through the randomly generated mine. But, there's also a more relaxed mode with half the quota you need to hit (but no bonus cash) and also a peaceful mode if you just want to experience all the weapons and tools it has. That makes my brain happy, since the standard mode really is quite a challenge when you're first getting into it, I managed to fail quite a lot before deciding on a good path through the upgrades.

Inside the mines there's also various chests to mine through to open, with each having a different passive upgrade you can grab to power-up your run through. And, at times, a temporary buff that allows you to 1-hit smash through blocks which is great fun.

Some interesting unlocks available to with different characters, each having their own starting weapon and unique buffs. Along with different types of maps to unlock too. There's a number of hours of entertainment you can have with it.

One of the key points I found at least early on, is to focus on a single piece of equipment to upgrade at least twice, then add some more time to your day, before moving onto building up your little army of helpers. Eventually you understand the loop once you've failed a few times, and your brain keeps screaming at you for another run just to see how far you can get. The sheer panic I feel when that timer starts ticking down on those last few seconds though, it surprisingly gets the blood pumping as you race back to deposit your ores.

It runs perfectly on Desktop Linux with Proton 9 but the developer might be doing a Native Linux build later. Valve also rated it Steam Deck Playable.

I picked it up on a whim, as I saw a friend playing it and thought it could be interesting and it is! Being impulsive paid of! Coal LLC is a great example of having a fun little gameplay hook and just going nuts with it. Great stuff.