Coin Pusher: its lineage, descendants, and standing in Japan
01What this origin is
Coin Pusher is RewindApp's 2019 PC recreation of the real-world funfair and arcade machine of the same name, in which coins slide across a moving shelf and every coin you feed it might, or might not, tip a stack of others over the edge. This lineage is a comparison drawn by this site to note a genuine mechanical ancestor rather than a developer-stated influence; it is an early digitization of the physical coin-pusher concept that Old Coin Pusher Friends 2 builds on top of, turning a solitary arcade machine into an Edo-period, yokai-fighting, up-to-four-player cooperative game.
02Sources
03Buried gems that carry this root
Old Coin Pusher Friends 2 Buried gem
Per Steam's own listing, this is an online cooperative coin pusher game set in the Edo period: up to four players push coins together to defeat yokai, repel swarms of skulls, and chase the jackpot, upgrading abilities and equipment as they go, with random matchmaking for one-time encounters, friends-only matchmaking for private sessions, and solo play all supported. Cooperative events include yokai-defeating rounds and a coin-tossing minigame styled after a traditional ball-toss game, with yokai scaling in strength to match the players' own power and stronger yokai paying out bigger rewards; players also collect Edo-period-themed prizes that accumulate prize points, eventually spawning magatama, the comma-shaped beads of ancient Japanese ornament, and equipment such as secondary launchers and flags, along with coin attack power and fire-rate upgrades, are bought with old coins earned in play or the magatama earned from prizes. It is the second entry in a series that began with Old Coin Pusher Friends (2021). Made and self-published by STP WORKS, a small independent company its own developer, going by the handle Danoji, describes in a Game*Spark interview as being run by two friends who started the company together roughly two years earlier, one handling development and Danoji himself handling marketing and operations, with the friend serving as company representative; the game itself launched through a CAMPFIRE crowdfunding campaign that ran April 28 to May 12, 2023, with a ¥10,000 goal drawing ¥644,500 from 346 backers, more than 60 times its target. Released May 18, 2023 at ¥470, it is Very Positive at about 90.6 percent over 469 reviews (425 positive, 44 negative per Steam's own review API), a paid title, not free, fully launched and not in Early Access, with Steam Achievements and Cloud support, no AI-generated assets, and per Steam's own content descriptors, nothing sexual. It supports English, Japanese, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and only about 44 of its 469 reviews, some 9.4 percent, are in English, leaving the great majority of its audience still in Japan.