Lucky Coins: Plinko Deluxe
Written: Oct 26 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: simple premise, simple controls, tons of challenges, simple music, engaging sound effects
Cons: not much control or skill involved, limited replay value, no online scoreboards
The Bottom Line: It's a simple game that doesn't require a lot of skill.
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| kjell1979's Full Review: Lucky Coins for iPhone |
The other weekend Donut Games had a sale on the iTunes App Store. Many titles that were normally 99 cents were available for free. Lucky Coins was one of the games involved with this sale. Lucky Coins is a lot like a complicated version of Plinko from The Price is Right.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Lucky Coins is very simplistic. You drop a coin and watch it as it falls down through a board filled with all sorts of bumpers and paddles. There are all sorts of objects which your coin can pick up to earn points. Even hitting certain bumpers and paddles earns you points. Finally there's a chute at the end which is worth a variable amount of points depending on where it falls. The sole purpose of Lucky Coins is to simply earn as many points as you can.
The trick to the game comes when your ball gets caught by this launcher that rotates 360 degrees constantly. This allows you to redirect your coin in an abundance of different directions. Aside from the initial coin release, this is the only interactive part of Lucky Coins; therefore you have to make your shots count because the rest is up to the randomness of the table.
There are a couple modes of play. First is the arcade mode. This is where you go through four successive tables and your aggregate score from those tables makes up your overall score. This score is then recorded on a high score list. The other method of play is challenge mode. Challenge mode lets you work your way through 20 different individual tables. Each new one unlocks when you can reach the minimum score level. Getting the minimum score on certain tables can be rather challenging. Some tables took me well over a dozen shots to reach that plateau. Beyond the minimum score, there's also a mid-range and high score milestones to shoot for. I was only able to make a couple mid-range and high scores in my first attempt so these are really challenging.
Overall the gameplay is really simplistic, but cannot be underestimated just how luck based it is. Sometimes I can rack up a good 20% of my score just by bouncing in between two bumpers for 5 to 10 seconds just out of sheer luck. There are a few challenge mode levels that revolve around the launchers and your ability to precisely launch your coin. However most tables have so many random elements and point placements that it's hard to feel like you have full control over your coin. This is especially true in arcade mode where you can miss a whole row of launchers just by random dumb luck. So overall the gameplay in Lucky Coins can be fun, but also really frustrating given the luck factor.
Controls
The controls are extremely simple. There are two times when you interact with the game. The first is when you start out, your coin moves from side to side at the top of the screen. You tap the screen to release the coin and start its journey. Whenever your coin gets sucked into a rotating launcher, you tap the screen when you want to launch your coin in a particular direction.
The simplistic controls only serve to illustrate just how little is under your control. Most of this game is spent watching the coin bounce around and collect points. Still, there is some skill in where you redirect your coin in the rotating launcher. The good part is when you press the screen it's extremely responsive and there's no lag. In the end the controls are simple and easy to pick up.
Graphics
The graphics are one of the nicer aspects of Lucky Coins. The framerate is clearly crisp and allows for plenty of action to take place on screen at once. The sprite graphics render a colorful table and arcade like effects to be displayed on the screen. However the effects do not explode or otherwise interfere with your ability to launch your coin in a new direction. Overall the graphics feature a superior framerate and an arcade theme which serves the theme of the game well.
Sound
The sound effects also further the arcade style of the game. The game sounds a lot like a pinball machine with bumper sounds and arcade like sound effects whenever you hit launchers, stars, or other point giving items. Overall the sound effects are a little misbalanced in terms of volume but overall give off an appropriate arcade ambience.
The music features 3 light but upbeat themes. Certain levels feature one of those three themes dispersed throughout the 4 arcade levels and 20 challenge levels. It does get repetitive after a while but its minimalistic nature doesn't get in the way and thus doesn't seem nearly as bad.
Replay Value
There isn't much replay value in this game. There are three different point plateaus to reach on each of the 20 challenge levels as well as a high score list on the arcade game. Still, there are a few challenge levels where the point ceiling isn't that high. In addition the gameplay is so luck based that simply getting a high score is more the fruit of hours of frustration than actual rewarding skill. To that end this game will not get the amount of hours other games will.
Lucky Coins is at its heart a casual game. I can see my mother in law playing this game for hours on end and maybe even getting some mileage from my wife. However hardcore gamers should probably save their buck for another game. The heavy luck component really will not entertain more seasoned gamers. However the polish in the graphics sound and controls should serve as a good game for younger gamers, and casual gamers who are easily turned off by complicated controls and a tremendous amount of video gaming experience. Lucky Coins is good at what it does, but it just isn't for everyone.
Recommended:
No
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kjell1979
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