Raccoin is a deceptively simple looking coin-pushing Roguelite that has you play as a number of characters trying to meet the high score on coin pushing machines. You’ll be combining special coins, prizes and modifiers to make the optimum ticket winning experience and unlock everything you can on your way to the top.
Now I mentioned before that Raccoin is deceptively simple, and that’s because there is so much on offer behind the curtain, so to speak. At first it does look like a simple coin pushing experience with a few special coins on offer and the odd modifier but the more you play the more customisation you unlock opening up a world of possibilities for your next run.
Your first experience will be as the manager of the establishment, who will show you the ropes and run you through the basics of operating the machine. You can simply put coins in from the left or right side as well as pay tickets to refresh your coins a number of times. This is pretty much the bread and butter of your experience as you’ll be pumping coins in to get tickets out.
After you hit a certain score on the machine you’ll be given the chance to go to the shop and buy an upgrade for your coin clip which lets you hold special coins, special coins themselves, prizes that modify the machine in some way or items that give you permanent modifiers for your run that you can buy in the shop and sell at will. With all of these options available you can create some truly crazy combinations leading to modifiers in the hundreds per coin you win.
I myself quite like The Biologist character that allowed me to spawn coins that act like creatures. For instance I could get a bunny coin which when two meet they would breed and create another singular coin, multiple coins = multiple rabbits. Pair this with the wolf coin and you’ve got a coin that will hunt the rabbits you’ve spawned and gain value for each coin “eaten” until it is cashed in or destroyed with a chance of leaving a poop coin behind that can fertilise a plant coin.
The synergy that is available is off the charts in Raccoin and you are only really limited by your choices in the shop and by how many runs you’ve completed as a lot of features are unlocked from the more you play. There are two faces to this coin however as that does mean that you need to sink a few hours into Raccoin to really get the ball rolling and start to truly experience the game.
Outside of the cabinet there are a number of characters and tickets to choose from that also give you buffs or debuffs accordingly making your run both easier and harder and allows you to focus your choices in the shop down to what makes your current build work. Each of these characters seem to have you focus on a particular type of coin or status effect so choose wisely when you start a run.
The initial level does seem to cap out at around 700,000 points, but if like me you don’t want to say goodbye to your current setup you can continue into “endless mode” which allows you to keep going until you can’t go anymore. When entering Raccoin’s endless mode however you do have a new limit of 6,000,000 which was very difficult to reach, I managed to get to about 1,400,000 before running out of options and having to forfeit my run.
If you are particularly lucky and manage to child up a big enough combo of dropping coins into the shoot you might get a go at spinning the wheel of prizes that can give you prize items to modify the coins in play or a chance to spin a second wheel which creates a coin tower or offers rarer prizes. I have to say there is something very satisfying about getting the 520 coin tower and watching it come crashing down as I launch a tornado coin into it and coins shoot off in every direction.
If you’re looking for a similar type of luck based roguelite be sure to check out our review of Cloverpit, a similar, albeit much darker go at a luck based roguelite that this time revolves around a fruit machine.
Raccoin has a lot to offer in a tightly knit package, it’s a simple idea multiplied and modified to get the most out of a familiar format
Raccoin is available for PC now.
