You don't see a lot of coin pusher arcade machines anymore. Raccoin: Coin Pusher Roguelike, from developer Doracoon and Balatro publisher Playstack, is played within one.
The decline of coin pusher arcade machines came with increased restrictions on real-money prizes for largely luck-based games—i.e., gambling—and the closure of arcades themselves. A child of the '90s, I spent a lot of time in arcades putting tokens into coin pushers. The one at my local arcade was brightly lit with lots of vibrant colors, set up with six different stations so multiple people could play at once. No strategy in mind, I'd bounce between setups tossing coins into the machine at entirely random intervals, hoping one would eventually pay off.
The thing about the coin pusher is that its prizes—largely more coins, which equal tickets—always look tantalizingly close to the edge. Just one more coin! Coins or tokens are inserted into the machine and slide onto a moving shelf. The idea is that the new coins, laid flat behind the mess of coins in front, cause a chain reaction when the shelf moves. The coins closest to the edge fall off the shelf, onto another playing field with more coins. And then newly fallen coins then continue the cycle: When the shelf moves, coins at the edge of the machine fall into the prize slot. If you do it right, perhaps, you'll win a ton of coins—an avalanche of coins.
A demo version of the game is playable now on Steam, and it's exactly the experience I'd always hoped a coin pusher would be. There are lots of coins—so, so many—and with a little strategy, you'll be raining coins into the prize slot repeatedly. Doraccoon lays it out quite plainly in its Steam description: "It's a nonstop dopamine rush packed into one unpredictable, coin dropping ride."
From a moving chute, you'll drop coins into the game quickly and generously. Where Raccoin strays away from the traditional coin pusher is that it's also a roguelike with lots of different modifiers designed to create huge payouts. The different items, abilities, and coins combine to shift the playing field and enhance effects. These are unlocked gradually, as the goals of your runs get higher. You're able to get through the first through levels of the demo without much strategy, but you'll need one in the later levels. Some coins do things like create an explosion. One item creates a black hole that sucks coins in.
But Raccoin's strategy can get pretty complicated when you start thinking about the ways coins can interact with each other, much like a Balatro run with its different joker cards. So, for instance, you can combine coins that represent seeds with water coins or with a fertilizer item to create coin trees. Spam that even more by using a special prize that rains down your most purchased coin—if you've done things right, that should be the seed coin—to take it even further.
What you end up with is an absolutely constant cascade of coins overflowing into the prize slot, lighting up the machine with the satisfying sound of coins clinking around. Shaking the arcade machine won't get you kicked out of the arcade, either: It's just another way to hear that gratifying sound.
Raccoin's demo is available now on Steam, but there's no release date announced just yet. The demo is just a fraction of what will be available in the full game, allowing you to unlock two separate characters, 50 different coins, and 60 ability items. It's more than enough to keep me busy until the game's out; it's got the same sort of feel as Balatro in that it's hard to step away. Just like the coin pushers of my youth, I find myself saying: just one more coin.
