For this critical play I played Raccoin, a coin pusher simulator by Doraccoon. The game targets a general audience and is available on PC through Steam.
Coin pusher is a classic game in arcades where the player inserts coins onto a platform and tries to make existing coins and other prizes fall through a payout slot. Raccoin takes this game and brings it to a whole new level. Like other chance-based roguelike games such as Balatro and Cloverpit, each individual game has several rounds with exponentially growing goals, and players need to make use of the limit resources, in this case the coins, to beat the goal and progress through the game. Players can purchase chips, prizes, and special coins that aid them in beating the goals by, for example, increasing the value of coins, increasing score multipliers, or providing extra coins that players can insert. The game also features reward spins, where upon reaching a certain combo streaks (when multiple coins are dropped into the payout zone within a short time), the player is awarded a prize spin that may offer either bonus coins or prize capsules.
Prior to playing Raccoin myself, I watched several Youtubers play it, and the nice visual as well as the physical spectacles of coin towers falling over are quite appealing to me. However, after playing it, I found it less compelling than Balatro or Cloverpit, two other popular games of chance. I attribute this to Raccoin occupying a somewhat awkward middle ground between skill and luck: players have enough control to feel responsible for outcomes, but not enough predictability to make strategic planning satisfying.
Balatro is based on Texas Hold’em, a poker game whose strategy has been investigated by mathematicians and game theorists for a long time. While Balatro removed the element of inter-personal competition, it preserves many elements of probability management and long-term planning. For example, players can thin decks to increase desirable hands, arrange deterministic Jokers to maximize scoring, and choose which hands to play. As a result, it gives the impression that success comes more from player skill and planning than pure luck and motivates players to actively participate in strategizing.
Cloverpit, being based on slot machines, appears to be on the other extreme, where player’s skills and planning during gameplay doesn’t have a direct effect on the outcome. While players still need to use various lucky charms and phone calls to help them beat the goals, they do this vicariously by skewing the luck to their favor i.e. increasing the chance of certain tokens appearing on the slot machine. Nonethelss, the player’s strategizing is presented in a transparent manner through the probability table and multiplier table next to the slot machine, giving player a clear mental model of risk and reward in an otherwise pure game of chance.
This is something that I think Raccoin struggles with: it is really hard for me to know, during gameplay, what my expected return would be, and how I am influencing the outcome of play. During gameplay, I can choose to insert coins either via the left or the right outlet, thereby controlling where the coin lands and in theory allowing me to control how coins on the platform moves. However, due to the complexity of the physical simulation, the movement of coins feel unpredictable and sometimes frustrating. The many mechanics that players need to utilize in gameplay to increase their scores also makes the learning curve quite steep. For example, there are special coins that interacts with existing coins, like gluing them together or blowing them away in an explosion, but it isn’t clear, even after multiple gameplays, what are good strategic ways to use these coins. In earlier rounds, I can complete round goals simply by spamming out all the coins, but in later rounds with goal of over 100000, all the strategizing I try do barely nudges my progress towards the goal. All in all, despite the charming visuals and physical spectacles of coins falling over, Raccoin makes me feel uncertain if my planning is contributing to success and may explain why I find it a less satisfying and additive game.
I personally do not consider Raccoin likely to put people at risk for addiction in a similar fashion to typical gambling games. As it is discussed in Addition by Design, the inscrutability of gambling machines act as a hook for repeated gamblers, and for gambling addicts, knowledge of the machines’ inner function no longer curbs their drive for gambling, as rationality gives away to sensation. This is the opposite of games like Raccoin, Balatro, and Cloverpit, where rationality in planning and strategizing is central to the game mechanic. The round-based game structure and clear winning & losing conditions also sets a boundary in gameplay. Nonetheless, given the wide variety of modifier items and large probability space in these games, one may still be compelled to keep replaying to find optimal strategies, much akin to the addictiveness of typical strategy games, such as Civilization VI.
I think the most morally impermissible use of chance in games is in microtransaction games, such as gacha games, as the addictiveness causes real financial strain on players much similar to actual gambling. It is more permissible in one-time purchase games in my opinion, but there where the use of chance may have a negative effect on the gameplay experience, for example, if an NPC has an X chance to give me an item during a dialogue instead of a guaranteed chance.
