Critical Charge ⚡

Welcome to Critical Charge - a high-speed endless runner game where your device's battery level determines your speed and physics! The lower your battery, the faster you go and the higher you jump, creating a thrilling challenge that gets harder as you play.

🚀 Getting Started

🌐 Play on the Web

• Click the "Play on itch.io" button at the top of this page.

📱 Android

1. Download: Navigate to the Releases page and download the latest .apk file.
2. Install: Tap the file on your Android device to install.
3. Security Warning: Because this game is distributed via GitHub (and not the Google Play Store), Android may display a "Play Protect" security warning:

• If you see "Scan app," tap it.
• If the installation is blocked, tap "More details" and select "Install anyway."

💻 HTML

Prerequisites: Ensure you have Node.js and serve installed.

1. Download: Navigate to the Releases page and download the latest build.
2. Extract the .zip to the folder as critical-charge
3. Open Terminal inside the folder and run:

serve --open

This will automatically launch your default browser to run the game in localhost.

💻 For Development

Prerequisites: Ensure you have Node.js installed.

Setup:

1. Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/psychostark/critical-charge.git

3. Navigate to the folder:

cd critical-charge

3. Install dependencies:

npm install

To Run:

npx vite preview --open

• To Build:

npm run build

🎮 How to Play

Objective

Survive as long as possible by dodging enemy chargers on a futuristic track. Your score increases based on how far you travel, and the game gets faster and more frantic as your battery drains!

Controls

Critical Charge supports multiple input methods for both desktop and mobile devices:

Keyboard Controls (Desktop)

• ← Left Arrow / A: Move left
• → Right Arrow / D: Move right
• ↑ Up Arrow / W: Jump over obstacles
• P / ESC: Pause game

Touch Controls (Mobile)

• Swipe Left: Move left
• Swipe Right: Move right
• Swipe Up: Jump
• Tap Anywhere Else: Resume (when game over/paused)

Gyroscope Controls (Mobile)

• Tilt Left: Move left
• Tilt Right: Move right

Gameplay Features

Core Mechanics

• Battery-Powered Speed: Your device's actual battery level controls your speed! The lower your battery, the faster the track scrolls (up to 8x speed at 0% battery).
• Dynamic Gravity Physics: Your jump weight is tied directly to your battery. Full batteries make your character heavy with tight jumps. Low batteries grant massive hang-time to survive the extreme speeds.
• Three-Lane Movement: Seamlessly glide between left, center, and right lanes.
• Endless Track: The game generates an infinite track with procedurally managed enemy chargers.

Dynamic Audio & Haptics

• Multi-Tiered Soundtrack: The background music automatically shifts to more intense tracks as your battery hits critical thresholds.
• Dynamic Pitch Scaling: The game speed dictates the music tempo, and your battery weight dynamically alters the pitch of your jump sound effects!
• Physical Feedback: Feel every movement with integrated hardware haptics for lane changes, jumps, heavy crash impacts, and UI taps.
• Persistent Mute: Audio settings are saved globally; if you mute the game, it stays muted across sessions.

Scoring System

• Score: Earn points based on distance traveled. Higher speeds earn more points per second.
• High Score: Your best score is saved automatically and displayed on the game over screen.

Save & Load

• Auto-Save: The game automatically saves your progress when you pause.
• Manual Load: Click the LOAD GAME button to continue from your last save.

Visuals

• Futuristic Aesthetics: Neon-lit track with glowing, perspective-scaled edges and sci-fi visual effects.
• Dynamic HUD: Displays your score, high score, battery percentage, and current velocity.

🔋 Battery Mechanics

The game uses your device's real battery status through the Battery Status API to manipulate the game engine:

• 100% - 75% Battery: Heavy gravity, short jumps, slow track speed (1x).
• 75% - 50% Battery: Medium gravity, moderate jumps, medium speed.
• 50% - 25% Battery: Light gravity, high jumps, fast speed.
• 25% - 0% Battery: Ultra-light gravity, maximum hang-time, extreme speed (8x).

⚠️ Note: The Battery Status API is only supported on Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera) on Android, Windows, and macOS. If you're using an unsupported browser (like Safari or Firefox), you'll see a "HARDWARE UNSUPPORTED" screen.

🦠 W.I.R.U.S. Anti-Cheat System

Critical Charge requires you to play off the charger. Attempting to plug in your device mid-game will trigger the W.I.R.U.S. Security Protocol:

• System Hijacked (Level 1 Penalty): Plugging in your device halts the game, stops the music and blares warning sirens
• System Corrupted (Level 2 Penalty): Plugging the charger (3+ times) triggers a catastrophic failure, putting the game into a permanent blackout loop and wiping all local data (including high scores and settings).

🕹️ Game Screens

Main Gameplay

• Player: Your dynamic character running along the track
• Obstacles: Enemy chargers that spawn across different lanes
• Track: Infinite scrolling road with dynamic scaling neon stripes
• HUD: Shows score, high score, battery %, and velocity

Pause Screen

Shows "CRITICAL BREAK" with dynamic options:

• RESUME: Continue your current game
• RESTART: Immediately restart a fresh run
• SAVE GAME: Manually save your state
• LOAD GAME: Load your last saved game
• NEXT TRACK: Manually override the BGM
• MUTE / UNMUTE: Toggle persistent audio
• TOGGLE CONTROLS: Swap between Swipe and Tilt modes (if gyroscope is detected)
• TEST MODE / EXIT TEST: Enter or leave the developer sandbox

Game Over Screen

Shows "CRITICAL FAILURE" with your final score, high score, and options to Restart or Load Game.

🧪 Developer Mode

Critical Charge includes a built-in sandbox for testing mechanics on unsupported devices.

• Access: Press the ` (Backtick) key globally, or click TEST LAB in the Pause Menu.
• Mock Battery: Use keyboard shortcuts to spoof battery drain (1%/sec), fake a charger connection, or hard-reset to 100%.
• Live Debugger: View real-time output of frame rates, BGM/SFX tracks, haptic triggers, raw input matrices, and source API connections.

💾 Save System

Critical Charge features a robust save system:

• State Preservation: Saves your exact position, score, and the exact location of all active enemies on the track.
• Manual Loading: Click LOAD GAME to seamlessly resume your game state.

🛠️ Technical Requirements

Supported Platforms

• Desktop: Chrome, Edge, Opera (Windows/macOS)
• Mobile: Chrome, Edge (Android)

Unsupported Platforms

• iOS devices (Safari)
• Firefox browsers
• Any browser without Battery Status API support

🎯 Tips & Strategies

1. Adapt to the Gravity: A jump at 100% battery feels vastly different than a jump at 10%. Anticipate your hang-time!
2. Obstacle Timing: Watch for enemy chargers appearing in the distance and plan your lane changes early.
3. Jump Clearance: Time your jumps carefully - you need to be at least 120 pixels high to clear an enemy charger.
4. Save Often: Pause frequently to save your progress, especially when you're doing well.
5. Gyroscope Advantage: On mobile, use the tilt controls for smooth, threshold-based lane changes.

🏗️ Under the Hood (Architecture)

Critical Charge uses a highly modular, vanilla JavaScript engine structure:

• engine.js: The central loop and director.
• player.js: Encapsulated player state, sprite mathematics, and physics reactions.
• physics.js: Centralized collision detection and batch-processing.
• obstacle-manager.js: Spawning algorithms and object pooling for enemies.
• audio.js & haptics.js: Unified media controllers for multi-tier feedback.
• screens.js: Centralized canvas button registry mapping touch events mathematically to scaled resolutions.

📜 License

This game is open-source and available for personal use and modification.

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⚡ Enjoy the game and challenge your friends to beat your high score! ⚡