Old Coin Pusher Friends 3 (Switch)

 In real life, coin pushers are a hated scourge, the disease that has overrun and essentially killed off everything fun and interesting in the UK's seaside arcades. But when I noticed there was a series of videogame adaptations of the concept, my curiosity was piqued: how would you turn such a simple concept, that's so reliant on physicality and prizes into a videogame that is inherently unable to offer either? The price was a mere pittance, so I gave the newest one a look.

 

Old Coin Pusher Friends 3 does it by having a simple board game happening at the top of the screen, with the coin pushing happening at the bottom. In the board game part, there's a guy journeying to visit the 52 stations of the Tokaido, and he moves according to dice that you win from the coin pusher game below. There's special spaces along the way, like a palanquin that'll carry the guy an extra distance, baskets of coins that rain into the pusher, enemy spaces, and more.

 

Enemies stop the journey while you fight them. You see, you don't drop coins into a slot to get them into the coin pusher, you shoot them from a gun! So when there's an enemy, you point the game upwards and try to kill the enemy before time runs out and they leave on their own. Beat them, and a bunch of treasures will drop into the pusher. There's two different upgrade shops in the game: one where you buy upgrades with your coin supply, and another where you buy upgrades with magatama. When you reach one of the stations, all the treasures you collected since the last one get turn into magatama at a rate of one for every four treasures.

 

As well as coins, dice, and treasures, there's also koban (you know, those oval-shaped gold coins, like what Meowth has on its head). Because while you're playing, there's a jackpot counter that increases for every coin you shoot. Get seven koban, and jackpot mode activates, during which coins and treasures will constantly rain down from the 'bove, until the number of coins that's fallen has reduced the jackpot counter to zero. If you're smart (and lucky), you'll eventually be playing in an almost constant state of jackpot mode, which is nice.

 

Old Coin Pusher Friends 3 is an odd little game. It's cheap, and I think it'll take about thirty to forty hours to complete. Furthermore, despite being an adaptation of a (low level) gambling machine conceptually, there's not much in the way of dark patterns in its design: it actually has an end, there's no real money shop or any extra stuff to buy after you have the game at all, in fact, and there's no imperative to check in every day. There's unlockables, both the aforementioned upgrades as well as a few optional cosmetics, but you'll have unlocked them all after a few stages. If the game sounds interesting to you, pick it up. It's not anything spectacular, but it's a decent enough way to semi-mindlessly occupy your hans while watching TV or whatever.