If there was ever a game best described by a series of inarticulate, baffled sounds and some helpless gestures towards the screenshots and a link to play for yourself, jmtb02's latest action arcade game Coinbox Hero might be it. Use the [arrow] keys to jump and batter yourself against a floating coinbox in Germany while polka music plays and collect the coins that fly out to purchase upgrades at the shops with the [spacebar] to better facilitate your coinbox beat-down. Why? Because coinboxes are lame (... apparently... ) and need to be destroyed, but this one isn't going to go down so easily. There's only one thing that can really destroy a coinbox, and it takes more than a little pocket change, so if I were you, I'd get jumping. And maybe hire some workers while you're at it. After all, he who hammers his head against bricks alone gets avoided at parties and on the subway for dribbling onto his collar. That's an ancient Chinese proverb, you know.
Coinbox Hero is one of those games that kind of makes you ask yourself, "What am I doing with my time?", but still find yourself playing ten minutes later. It's simple, weird, entertaining and queerly addictive, but at the same time is more than a little repetitive since it winds up playing itself after a while. Mike Shadow: I Paid For It had essentially the same concept, but with considerably more flash and flair in its upgrades. Coinbox Hero, by contrast, goes more for the absurdity in its presentation, and takes a while to really get anywhere, but if you stick with it and are clever with your upgrades you'll soon find the screen a veritable whirlwind of coinage. You might wonder if the payoff for all this, which comes after you finally save up enough to purchase a nuke, is worth it. You might wonder if this game could possibly get any weirder. More importantly... you might wonder if your health insurance covers all this head trauma.
Please note that there are still some minor glitches in this game. During my play I discovered it would pause randomly during prolonged machine-gun fire, and it does appear to be possible to actually force the coinbox off the screen with enough bullets from one over-powered source.
Walkthrough Guide
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I don't think the pausing is a glitch. It happens if you don't interact with the game for a while, and just holding the mouse button down doesn't count as interacting.
Incidentally, the simplest path to victory seems to be (does this count as a walkthrough?):
Hire a worker right away and buy him a crossbow. Run around and collect $340.
Hire another worker and buy him the second level of collect. Congratulations, you can now sit back and let the game play itself (pushing P every so often to unpause). But to speed things along...
Spend $100 on a higher coin cap. 50 is way too low.
Purchase your shooter the next ranged weapon on the list whenever you've saved up enough.
When you buy the Uzi, you'll hit the coin cap again. Go ahead and spend the $500 to raise the cap; he'll hit it again, but your worker will be collecting more on each pass.
When you reach $1,180, buy another collector worker with second-level collect.
Save up to $4,000 and upgrade one of your collectors. They should be able to keep up with the coin flow now.
When you hit $4,000 again, you can upgrade the other collector. Or you can buy a new max-level collector at $7,200. Or you can wait until $10,000 and get that machine gun for your shooter. Up to you. You'll want to do all three in some order or other.
With three collectors, the cash is flowing in nicely. Save up $15,000 and upgrade your gunner to the second level machine gun.
Hooray for blue coins! Your collectors are probably struggling again, so spend $10,000 to raise the cap a bunch. $11,500 will get you a fourth collector at max level.
What's your next target? How does $36,450 grab you? It's a big number, but it'll be worth it when you raise your gunner's Power to maximum.
Not impressed yet? Another $36,450 on his Dexterity will make him all he can be.
Whoa. Black gold. His coin output seems to have slowed down, though. No matter. Save up $40,000 and give him the perfect weapon.
The only way to increase your coin output at this point is to save up $40,000 and give one of your collectors another gun. So go ahead and do that.
Collectors struggling now? Save up the $36,450 to upgrade one's Power to maximum, and follow that with another $36,450 for maximum Core, and he'll turn into a veritable blur.
From here on out, it's up to you. Remember to upgrade your second gunner's Power and Dexterity (don't bother with anything melee-related) and upgrade your remaining collectors. If you hit the coin cap, buy another collector; if you're not hitting it, convert a collector to a gunner. The cap you're at should be fine, but you can bump it up if you've hired all the people you can and are still maxing out.
Once you hit $1,000,000, buy the tactical nuke and win!
Also, a general tip: buying upgrades in order doesn't save you any money. When you can afford to, save up for the most expensive one.
Also also: am I the only one who was glad the ending wasn't some sort of mockery of how long we spent just getting to the ending?
Posted by: Fred M. Sloniker
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August 27, 2011 11:29 PM