Twisted Coal

Twisted Coal has undergone a dramatic transformation compared to her Toon counterpart and bears some visual similarities to Twisted Pebble. She now has a pair of bulky Ichor legs ending in black feet with dark gray claws. Her head connects to her body through a thick band of Ichor and features two jagged, black ears. Her head is shaped somewhat like a rat's, except that she sports canine-like front teeth. She retains the distinctive black bone snowflake-like markings on her cheeks from her original form. Her eyes feature red sclera, black irises, and red pupils. Thicker eyebrows give her a permanently enraged expression. Her large red saddlebags are torn and damaged, though the flag attached to them remains completely intact.

Twisted Coal's defining characteristic is a massive speed increase during Blackouts, jumping from 16 to 25. Under normal lighting conditions she is quite slow, so encountering her on a standard floor is generally not concerning. In a Blackout, however, she becomes an extreme threat that must be avoided at all costs.

On normally lit Floors, Twisted Coal is relatively unthreatening due to her low chase speed. Her long attention span does make shaking her more difficult, since she may track you around obstacles longer than expected. When trying to lose her, maintain your pace and avoid sharp turns near islands. The most reliable method is to circle a table or similar object while staying outside her line of sight, which allows her to lose interest fairly quickly.

During Blackouts, she becomes a completely different threat. Her speed matches Twisted Pebble's, and her extended detection range and hearing radius mean you should avoid entering her line of sight at all costs, especially with Toons at 2 or lower Movement Speed who simply cannot outrun her. Apply the same general approach used for Twisted Pebble: prioritize staying hidden. If she does spot you, quickly duck behind an island and cling to it while making sharp turns until she loses interest. This is harder than it sounds because of her extended attention span, which means returning to her line of sight forces you into longer loops that burn Stamina and increase the risk of getting hit. Unlike Twisted Pebble, her smaller size, dark color palette, and lack of audio cues make her significantly harder to detect visually. Brightney and Vee's Abilities can help locate and avoid her. Carry speed or Stamina items like Chocolates, PopPops, and Speed Candies to improve your escape odds.

With 4+ Movement Speed, looping her around an island during Blackouts is feasible as long as you avoid other roaming Twisteds. Communicate your distraction plans clearly since her high detection range could cause her to switch targets mid-loop.

When no distractors are available, caution is your best tool. Vee's Remote can be invaluable for completing Machines in exposed areas, reducing the risk of being spotted by Twisted Coal's enormous vision range. Stick to map sections with more cover and avoid open, highly visible areas, since you may not realize Twisted Coal spotted you until it is too late.

Completing 100% Research on Twisted Coal unlocks:

• During Blackouts, she receives a significant speed boost that matches Twisted Bobette and Twisted Pebble.
• In a Blackout, she essentially becomes a silent version of Twisted Pebble, with identical speed, attention span, and detection range (the only difference being Twisted Brusha's hearing range is 25 units less).
• Completing 100% of her Research rewards the Coal Trinket, which is the second purely disadvantageous Trinket after Brick. However, it was designed to not be entirely negative, with the Movement Speed reduction intended to offset the Stealth reduction for distractor players.
• Her attention span was originally 8 seconds before being adjusted to 5 on normal Floors and 3 during Blackouts, likely because players found her extremely difficult to shake in the dark.
• Like Twisted Pebble, she has no Ichor spots on her body.
• She was the first Twisted with optimized animations but no attack face, followed by Twisted Pebble and Twisted Blot. This is most likely because attack face textures would not work well with her 3D eye models.
• Despite being optimized, she cannot blink even though a blinking texture exists in her files, similar to Twisted Glisten. This is probably a texture bug unrelated to her 3D eyes, since both Coal and Twisted Pebble are able to blink.
• She and Twisted Rudie were originally the first Twisteds whose in-game Research descriptions differed from their Roleplay Mode descriptions, followed by Twisted Eggson. All are Holiday Twisteds. The descriptions were later updated to match.
• She has a set of rock-like "ears" on her head despite her Toon counterpart lacking them. Some players speculate these originated from her two missing legs (her Toon form has four legs while Twisted Coal has two, possibly torn off during the Ichor transformation). Twisted Pebble also has a similar feature.