Raccoin Review: The Indie Gem You Must Play

TLDR: Buy this game! Go buy it NOW!

I started Stoffel Presents because after years of reviewing games I became annoyed at being told what AAA slop to review whilst amazing games were being made by Indie and Grassroots developers. Every time I proposed reviewing an exciting looking indie game I was shot down by my editor. So I left and created a platform that honours the skill, creativity and hard work of indie devs.

I genuinely believe that if you want to see what mainstream games are going to be doing in three years check out what indie games are doing today. This is simply because indie and grassroots devs have the creative freedom to create some weird and wonderful game mechanics. Other times they take an already successful game and build up on it. And that ladies and gentleman is where we get today’s little gem…Raccoin

There is no denying it so lets get it out of the way early…Yes Raccoin is Baltaro….but on a coin pusher. In fact it is so much more than that but that will be your first impression and it isn’t wrong. On a quick side note there are so many Baltaro-like games being released recently that I am going to coin (hehe couldn’t resist the pun) the phrase as a description for the genre.

Now, as i mentioned, there are a lot of Baltaro-like games out there right now…and more coming so what makes Raccoin so special? Quite simply the sheer utter madness of it all! There are coins, stickers, prizes, chips and key chains that all help build your score but before we get into that let’s not lose sight of one simple fact. Everything I am about to tell you and explain all takes place on a COIN PUSHER!!!!!

Gameplay

If I had to sum up Raccoins gameplay it would quite simply be *chef’s kiss*. It is so much fun, so addictive so complex yet incredibly simple. It is simply perfect. I have not been able to put Raccoin down. Even writing this review I just popped on to double check something and lost 45 minutes.

The gameplay begins really simple. There is a coin pusher. You have 10 coins. You must beat the score to progress to the next level. The score needed to pass the level increases each time. There are 15 levels. There. Done. Game reviewed. Now can I go back to playing?

OK OK you want more sure. Every coin you successfully push into the score zone is also converted into tickets. In between levels you can use the tickets to purchase multiple different items such as coins, chips and prizes.

Now I know what you’re thinking. C’mon Lord Badger its a coin pusher your really not selling it here! I know but that is because I don’t want to go too in depth and spoil the fun of Raccoin for you. OK Look at this list of unlockables in the game:

6 characters
150 coins
7 stickers
14 cards
18 modifiers
21 bad coins
100 chips
30 prizes
20 keychains
11 cabinets
and 21 prize wheel sections…I think

Now would you like me to explain what each of these things do and ruin the sheer unadulterated joy that is Raccoin? You do? well I won’t…and you will thank me for it later! I will say this though. On one run through I was on the 15th level, using the astronomer character and experimenting with the astrofall modifier. I needed 750,000 points to complete the level and accidentally triggered some insane combination of coins, modifiers and god knows what else. I sat back and watched explosions, followed by flying coins that triggered more explosions, that in turn triggered a prize wheel. The prize wheel spawned a tower stack of 144 coins, which accidentally knocked two coins together. Those two coins touching created an explosion and the whole chaos started again. This carried on for about 15 minutes. I am still not 100% sure what I did but when all the dust settled my score was registered as 5.8e7. To be quite frank I’m not even sure that is a real number!

Final Thoughts

If you can’t tell I am absolutely blown away by Raccoin. It is fun, it’s frustrating, it’s addictive, it’s complex…How is all of this a coin pusher game? It makes no sense and I love it! It is available on Steam right now and is an incredible bargain!

Raccoin is exactly why I began reviewing indie games. When AAA studios across the industry are delivering slop and “games as live-service” three Chinese college students have created something completely mental and joyous. This is what gaming should be and Racoin is why I became a Games Journalist.