Coin Pusher

Coin Pusher is a free arcade medal game in the style of the big pusher cabinets in Japanese game centres. Two shelves slide back and forth inside a glass cabinet, piled high with gold medals. You drop medals in from the top, the pushers shove the pile forward, and every medal that tips over the front edge comes back to you. Medals here are just for play: they are never bought, sold or swapped for anything.

How to play

• Slide the lever at the bottom (or drag on the cabinet) to aim the launcher left or right. The glow on the upper pusher shows where your medal will land: the cannon scatters a little, so it can land anywhere in that glow.
• Tap DROP to drop one medal, or hold it to keep dropping at a steady pace. Tapping faster doesn't drop faster, so there is no need to hammer the button.
• On a keyboard, aim with the left and right arrow keys and hold Space to drop.
• Pinch with two fingers, scroll over the cabinet or press + and − to zoom from the whole machine to the field and down to the front edge. Big moments swing the camera for a second; switch that off under Auto camera in the i panel.
• Each drop costs one medal. Medals that fall over the front edge go back into your medals. Medals that slip into the side gutters are lost.
• If you run out, a free refill arrives after a moment, so you can always keep playing.

The two tiers

Your medal lands on the upper pusher. As it pulls back, a fixed plate sweeps the medals off its top onto the upper shelf, and the upper pusher feeds them over its lip onto the lower field. The two pushers move in opposite directions, so while one pulls back the other pushes. Watch the front edge of the lower field: medals pile up and hang over the lip, and the next push can send a whole cascade over at once.

Cannon ports, reels and treasure

Three glowing cannon ports ride on the upper pusher, and the middle one sweeps from side to side. A medal that drops into a port falls into the machine: it doesn't join the pile, it pays for a spin of the reels on the screen instead. So every drop is a choice between building the pile and buying a spin. Up to ten spins wait in reserve; hit a port with the reserve full and the level goes up, multiplying the medals the next lines pay. Two or three of a kind pours medals onto the field. Two maps drop a map piece, two gold balls drop a gold ball, and two treasure chests start Broadside: walls close the side gutters while the cannons fire volleys of medals onto the field.

Map pieces and gold balls are real pieces on the field: push them over the edge to collect them. Five map pieces spin the Treasure Chance wheel, which can lead to Kraken's Deep, where balls drop through pegs to climb a ladder. Reach the top and the whole jackpot shown on the screen pours onto your field. Every win pours onto the field first, as a flood of medals in front of the pile; only what won't fit comes straight to you. The jackpot grows a little with every medal you drop in. Tap the i on the screen for the exact odds of every draw.

Tips

• Aim where the pile is tallest near the front edge. Extra weight behind a ledge is what tips it.
• Keep away from the sides near the front: medals pushed into the gutters are gone.
• Time your drops: the ports pass under the launcher while the upper pusher is moving, and slip out of line at either end of its stroke. The pusher's pace drifts a little, so watch it rather than counting a beat.
• The side ports are narrow and the middle one is wide but moving. Holding DROP lands in a port now and then; watching and timing lands in one about every other drop.
• A map piece that slips into a gutter washes back onto the field, so a set can never get stuck.

Your pile is saved

Your medals and the whole pile on the field are saved in this browser. Close the tab and come back later: the ledge you were building is right where you left it, and nothing ever drains away while you are gone.