As yet another Balatro-style roguelite hybrid emerges raging from the volcanic portals of Steam Next Fest, as the smaller-scale gamedev scene at large threatens to melt into a soup of RNG and deckbuilding, I want you to picture me leaning over you like Samwise Gamgee leaning over Frodo, trying through his tears to remind the Ring-bearer of life back in the Shire, before the horror of Mordor.
“Do you remember the taste of strawberries?” Sam whispers. I do not want you to remember the taste of strawberries. I want you to remember how good it felt to sneak a ball behind the blocks in Breakout. It is the only thing that will save you now.
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Ball X Pit isn’t just a roguelite hybrid, but a Vampire Survive ’em up to boot. The setup is that a meteor has wiped out the city of Ballbylon (*smiles wanly at camera*) and left a massive hole full of monsters and treasure. You are a treasure-hunter, and the way you gather treasure is to proceed down a slowly scrolling shaft against a wall of block-shaped undead, shooting cannonballs that ricochet from foe and terrain alike.
After breaking enough monsterblocs, you get to choose from power-ups that include weirder, more powerful kinds of ball and a few shmuppy supporting acts, such as little gun-toting NPC statues. There are bosses too, some of which take things in almost a bullet hell direction, with arrows all but filling the screen.
I played the now-available Steam demo at a Devolver joint in London the week before last, in a desperate bid to claw back some precious naptime from my SGF schedule. I was dismayed by the rogueliting at first – in case I haven’t sufficiently spelled it out by now, I am really ready for this trend to be over. It’s not that Ball X Pit in itself is badly made, it’s that everytime I read the word “roguelite” in a press release, I can feel the very substance of my soul dribbling through my fingers. I’m naked in the dark, with nothing, no veil between me and the gameloop of fire.
But then I successfully snuck a ball behind the tide of four-cornered fiends, and was Samwisely suffused by recollections of shareware Breakout clones on Apple Macintosh in the 90s. Watching the ball bounce repeatedly between the blocks and backwall, racking up a high score without you having to lift a finger, is the nearest many of us will ever get to nirvana. It may not be enough for me to play/recommend the full thing, but it’s enough for me to suggest that you try the Ball X Pit demo yourself on Steam.
