Candleman

The next game on the easy list was Candleman, a platformer where you play as a candle that can jump. I can’t remember why I had this one but looking at the reviews of the game, they seem to give the indication that it was quite good.

The story appears to be that as a candle, you want to be able to light up the world so you need to travel to the lighthouse to learn its secrets. The narrative that accompanies the story feels very pretentious where it appears to be one of those ‘guess the underlying message’ things, that’s always done with a child storytelling voice but using language that a child wouldn’t understand so makes no sense in its own context. I get that the game needs framing though, otherwise it’s a just a candle jumping about from place to place.

The gameplay itself is fairly solid. It’s almost 100% platforming in nature with various collectibles scattered throughout the levels. Most of the levels are linear though so there’s no real exploration to it, it’s just a case of getting from A to B. There are some puzzle elements but very basic in terms of pressing buttons in a certain order and working out how to climb up stuff in the later levels.

What makes it unique is that as you are a candle, you are slowly burning down so there is a hidden timer to your actions. You can also burn faster by pressing a button to light up the place a bit more. This is necessary for some darker sections of the game but despite this, and with the numerous checkpoints, it doesn’t add much challenge to finishing the game.

Graphically, it’s pretty, atmospheric and pretty glitch free in terms of the environment, I didn’t encounter any issues where I got stuck and couldn’t continue. Musically, it builds on the atmosphere, but honestly, with the gameplay, you won’t notice the music as much when you’re actively doing something that involves your attention.

Achievements – 1,500 Points – 15 Achievements

In terms of the main game achievements, there are two goals; complete the levels and find all the candles. The one thing I found surprising is that it takes quite a long time to get through some of the levels and this can be mildly frustrating when you miss the one candle that’s off the beaten path. I also found out that if you do miss a candle, it’s easier to restart immediately than carry on and come back to it as the candles stay lit when you replay.

Outside of this there are another two achievements for dying once by running out of wax (I got this by dying in level with fire when I failed to avoid it) and for also failing five times then completing a level (and I did this is the same level. That fire is a bitch.)

Downloadable Content

Another three chapters were released as a free update to the game. It essentially offers more of the same gameplay with an additional 500 Gamerscore so in terms of what it offers, if you enjoyed the game it’s perfect.

Candleman is a perfectly adequate, but a little slow, platforming game. It’s a quick completion without any issues with the gameplay. It’s enjoyable for the gameplay, despite the overly unnecessary high brow narrative.