“Coin Runner” is a game that employs the simple mechanics of tapping or swiping, yet the randomness of the coins and bombs is what creates a sense of difficulty and uncertainty in the beginning. Coins and bombs are randomly thrown up on the screen and come back down in unpredicatble directions. In the meantime, players must try their best to collect the coins without touching the bombs or letting the coins touch the bottom of the screen. Due to the random motion, this also means that coins and bombs may overlap, making it difficult to solely click on the coins at times. However, there is a mechanic that makes the game more forgiving. My initial thought was that the bombs would automatically make the player lose as a similar game to “Coin Runner” makes players as soon as they touch the bomb. However, the game deducts points instead when players come in contact with the bombs, and it is possible to have negative points. As a player, this created a push and pull between myself and the game because while this can be considered a safety mechanism, the idea of negative points personally made me more frantic to get the points back up past 0. However after a while, this aspect seemed to remove the feeling of uncertainty because of the realization that while players would want to avoid the bombs, if the coins and bombs overlap, players can just click the bomb without fear of losing the game as the only thing they would truly want to avoid now is losing lives from letting the coins touch the bottom. All of these observations have led me to think that this game requires more strategy rather than skill as thinking ahead about how to make up the points from the bombs seemed to take over the gameplay. As such, players can anticipate and plan ahead for their next move between tapping coins and how they will make up negative points. This feeling occurs because there are no bonuses that allow for more points and counter the bombs, there is a higher incentive to prevent coins from touching the ground. Another aspect that makes the game more forgiving is the lack of enemies that really try to prevent players from winning and anticipate their next moves. However, this is not a detrimental aspect to the game as it would feel like adding too many complex elements would take away from what makes the game simple and sweet. However, it would enhance the gameplay to make the mechanics that already exist a little less forgiving to make the difference between winning and losing a bit more clear. Additions that are implemented to make the game less forgiving (within reason) may create a greater impetus for players to succeed. All in all, the game employs direct mechanisms that create a game that is easy to understand, and it is easy to understand exactly what the creator wants players to do in “Coin Runner”.