Ball x Pit Review

I wasn’t too sure watching the trailer for Ball x Pit if it was going to be a fun enough game, or something exceptional. Watching some of the publicity videos for it from Devolver had me curious enough to check it out, and man, I am glad I did. This chaotic indie game is one of the places you can sink far too much time into, far too easily.

So what even is Ball X Pit?

Imagine a Brick Breaker game where the bricks are enemies that move down towards you trying to kill you, and you will start to get the vibes for what the core gameplay is doing. But there is so much more to it. 

There is a wide selection of balls you can unlock that have special powers. They can inflict poison, then can trigger additional balls to be unleashed, they can send horizontal or vertical laser blasts, they can suck life from enemies. The options are endless. Then, as you play, you get to start combining your abilities together. Do you want a ball that both drains enemies’ life AND creates extra balls when you gain life? Well the world is your oyster.

The real hook with this game is that every time you play, the powerups you gain are randomised. Then, on each playthrough, you will wind up with opportunities to level the powerups, and mash them together. Through this, every time you play it is different, and varying levels of difficulty based on your choices and the randomised power-ups.

Each level has you going through waves of enemies until you smash out a couple of bosses, and then you unlock the next level. It’s so much fun to play, and way too easy to lose time to.

Anything else to do?

Outside the core gameplay, there is a weird little townbuilder function. You can build areas to harvest resources and put buildings in place. These do everything from buffing your character in play, to unlocking new characters to use. As you build the town, between runs you can send your characters to bounce around the town upgrading buildings and harvesting resources. This aspect of the game is clever, but I didn’t find it as exciting or engaging as doing heaps of runs down in the pit.

Unfortunately, you have to do this stuff as the perks you earn are crucial to success as the game and levels get way harder. 

So should you play Ball X Pit?

This is such an easy Hell Yeah! It’s such a fun game to play that becomes more and more chaotic the longer you play. Even as the screen winds up covered in bouncing balls, it continues to look and run perfectly. The only issue will be the negative impact it will have on your sleep, as it’s far too easy to do one more run. Seven more runs later, and you were meant to be in bed two hours earlier!