Ball x Pit Review – The most fun I’ve ever had with balls

Ball x Pit is what you get when you combine a brick breaking game with roguelike elements and base building. If this sounds ridiculous, it’s because in some ways it is, but in the best way possible.

From Lead Developer Kenny Sun, Ball x Pit is a game that immediately caught my attention during Steam Next Fest earlier this year, and it lived up to expectations, even being considered one of the more unique variations of a proven genre, worth every penny of its shockingly low price, and more.

You must have balls

Break bricks with balls while avoiding enemy attacks on a vertically scrolling battlefield, build your base, exploit more bouncing balls to collect materials, rinse and repeat. This is the elementary, basic gist of the game Ball x Pitbut it’s completely addictive and presented in a way that scratches my itch, making it a must-see for anyone who enjoys these kinds of genres.

In over 20 hours spent with Ball x Pit during the review period, I constantly found myself playing in compact increments of 15 minutes to an hour at a time (either on my computer or on my Steam Deck with perfect performance), and somehow I always found myself returning to the game shortly afterwards to keep my progress moving smoothly.

There is almost no narrative to speak of Ball x Pitso if you’re looking for a powerful story or dialogue, it’s not here. But that’s okay, because the gameplay loop is what brings you back for more every time. “Ballbylon has fallen,” we read in the game’s description. “After a lightning-fast and completely unexpected event destroyed a great city, all that remains is a sinister, gaping abyss. Treasure hunters from far and wide come to the city’s tomb to seek their fortunes, digging through the depths in search of Ballbylon’s scattered riches. Few return.”

By using these unique characters and special balls to break the enemy-shaped bricks in the pit below to support rebuild the growing city of New Ballbylon, you unlock novel skill-based balls, playable heroes and blueprints to build your base after successfully completing the various stages. Your job is to move up the screen and clear out the brick enemies in front of you, with a boss waiting for you at the end of each level. Watching the screen fill with balls bouncing back and forth while bouncing enemies away is a pleasure that never gets aged.

Combining balls to transform them into something completely novel is great fun, as is combining balls that cause bleeding with balls that produce compact balls to create a leech that attaches to enemies and drains their HP. It’s a lot of fun to exploit and explore different combinations as you focus on getting through the different pit environments.

There are 15 playable characters who have different abilities and starting balls, as well as dozens of different combinations you can create by combining and evolving the balls, making each run unique depending on the power-ups you choose and who you play with. Things never get too mundane, and if they do, there will be a character in the overdue game who will literally play for you if you want to play passively and do something else.

Building something special

In addition to the addictive impact of bouncing balls and breaking bricks in the pit, your home base grows throughout the game with novel buildings and structures that provide buffs to basic gameplay or resource gathering, as well as providing accommodations for all of your characters.

Each pit run takes between 12 and 15 minutes, after which you return to New Ballbylon to focus on upgrades and resource gathering, before returning for more ball explosions and boss fights with various character and ball combinations.

Filling New Ballbylon with wheat, trees, and rocks to obtain materials for further construction and progression is accomplished by releasing playable characters into the city itself and bouncing off everything along the way in a satisfying manner. Placing buildings next to farming areas that maximize your resources is a bit like a puzzle mini-game, and there are a lot of swaps and rotations you need to make to ensure you get the most and can afford upgrades.

There is a dedicated endpoint Ball x Pit, and it came rather suddenly and threw me into New Game Plus before I could complete a few achievements, which was quite annoying. However, this is one of the few bugs in the game, which should easily provide players with dozens of hours of fun.

I also wish the game was a bit more challenging since there’s a base difficulty and then NG+, but by the end of my hours with Ball x Pit, I felt overwhelmed by all the improvements I had acquired. However, this didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment and I will fondly remember this game long afterward, especially since it only costs $15. I think an argument could be made that in today’s environment it’s worth twice as much.

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