Bizarre ennui simulator The Coin Game hooks up with publisher Kwalee

Devotid has announced that they have partnered with publisher Kwalee to put more resources behind The Coin Game, a strange coin-op simulator that is currently in Early Access.

I wrote an Early Access review of The Coin Game just slightly over a year ago. I can’t possibly stress how bizarre the game is. It started as an attempt of emulating the sort of quarter-chomping prize games that you find in bowling alleys and shopping malls, and then bloomed into an open-world game set on an island of mid-western robot people. You take up side jobs in order to scrape together a bit of cash to spend at the arcades and win tickets. It’s an incredibly atmospheric game that draws you into summer directionlessness.

However, it’s largely been developed by a single person. In a post on Steam, they confess, “As a stubborn do-it-ALL-yourself kind of person that was very hard to face but the game is so much bigger than me now and it had to be done.”

There has been some frustration over the slow development of the game. While the updates that get released always feel meaningful, they don’t come very often. It has felt like Devotid’s personal project that they pluck away at on their own time, and in that way it’s very charming. However, I am interested to see what happens when there’s a bit more horsepower pulling the cart.

There are no announcements beyond the partnership with Kwalee, so it’s uncertain how long it will be to see the fruits of this arrangement. For now, The Coin Game is available on Steam Early Access.