If I'm being truly honest with myself, my reluctance to get started on any run-based games (I've been batting around a few preferred genre names for this sort of thing that won't make it sound like a stealth simulator to anyone unversed in ancient DOS game history, but no dice so far beyond "resetter", which sounds like some sort of dog breed; I'll keep at it) isn't actually due to the whole "two steps forward, one step back" nature of its incremental upgrades to the meta between progress wipes and how much more starkly such constant reversals put into perspective that our time on this planet is both short and precious, but rather it's due to how I know I'll get sucked into it and wind up spending far too much of this limited free Game Pass period I've successfully cajoled out of Microsoft for another year running. Ball X Pit, which looks so much like Loop Hero that there has to be some manner of inspirational relationship if nothing else, is absolutely another one of these bedeviled timesinks, one that tricked me into appreciating it due to its superficial resemblance to the "bat 'n' ball" genre that dominated the early '90s (and my peak impressionable period) for a brief time.
In Ball X Pit, the ancient and prosperous city of Ballbylon has been struck down by some supernatural calamity that resulted in a massive crater leading infinitely downward where it once stood. A small settlement has since been founded on the edge of this ominous abyss and from it, frequent forays by opportunistic treasure hunters down an elevator to the monster-infested caverns below. As one of several anonymous adventurers, you embark on a spelunking mission to grab as many resources as possible, including wood, stone, rocks, and gold (no real reason given why you couldn't just source most of those aboveground) to build structures, blueprints to know exactly what structures you can build, and new power-ups that might then appear in the randomized selection during your next attempt. Like in Rogue Legacy, all the materials you purloin and the buildings you erect have tangible benefits to future expeditions, and so even if you're struggling at the current depth that the elevator can reach it might simply be a matter of farming a few earlier areas for the upgrades you need to turn things around. The characters you've unlocked so far can go harvesting all the resource points you've planted—including a big pile of rocks which, again, feels like something you'd have no problem finding anywhere even in this desolate post-Ballbylon world—between each descent into the void, though this process plays much like the rest of the game with its deflections and angles.
Speaking of which, the game styles itself after a classic bat 'n' baller like Breakout or Arkanoid but has some conspicuous distinctions due to the run-based aspect of the game. For one, any balls that slip past your character simply return to your hand to be shot again: the failstate isn't letting them whiz past you, which will happen more frequently once you have a few dozen zipping around the place, but rather falling behind on the necessary amount of DPS required to defeat the hordes of enemies slowly marching towards the bottom of the screen before they get there and beat your ass. By acquiring new balls, combining them with other balls, and boosting their effects with some complimentary passive skills (you can have up to four each of the ball types and passive upgrades) you'll ideally be able to stay one step ahead of the increasingly tough enemies tramping, menacingly, in your direction. Of course, with the right combination of synergies you could be blatting these things the moment they appear along with the three boss battles encountered per run, though that might require a difficult combination of foresight and fortune to manifest. It's on those occasions where you have a good run going, through a combination of good judgement and pure luck, that these games tend to shine brightest and Ball X Pit is certainly no exception to that rule. That you can only have your particular combination of powers for a single run, usually around 15 minutes long unless you opt for the more challenging "fast mode" alternative, means that you can't exactly stomp the game into the dirt either once you've learned the ropes. Each run is a coin toss, ultimately, but that doesn't make it any less rewarding when you hit a good streak.
Visually, I talked about its resemblance to Loop Hero but I'm specifically talking about its juxtaposition of grim and yet somehow cute visuals as these forlorn and partially nameless warriors head towards a likely demise in the search for gold and glory; there's plenty of filters of the vignette and CRT-aping kind that are on by default and almost give the game a sort of spookypasta "cursed cart" vibe with its macabre style, while at the same time having all the character and enemy sprites be these dumpy chibi guys that seem ready-made for a Hot Topic merchandise line. The 3D models—usually for the little crates and boxes that the enemies ride in on, or the buildings found on the surface—are typically lo-poly too, lending themselves to that specifically PS1 horror game vibe that's become de rigueur of late. There's something about the grim, desaturated look of the game that really helps the extravagant light shows, that might result from a dozen different effects like lasers and ice and flames and poison that you may have acquired, pop in comparison and be that much more easier to visually parse: a more colorful game might otherwise cause too much of a headache-inducing clashing effect. We're not quite talking about a "bite down on your wallet and assume the fetal position" level of visual stimulation here but there's certainly an ever present risk of it being too much to handle. Of course, if that many visuals effects are going off at once it's likely you've already stopped needing to worry about aiming or trying to avoid the rapidly disintegrating enemy waves.
So, despite my prudence Ball X Pit has thoroughly jabbed its hooks in me and I suspect it won't be letting go for the rest of the month, even with other GP games that demand my attention. Fortunately, games like this are always built for short sessions—which, mysteriously, become hours-long "just one more run" affairs before you realize it—so I think I should be able to tear myself away from it long enough for some other games this month. Well, that is after one or two daily attempts at getting even deeper or replaying some of the earlier stages with characters that haven't cleared it yet—as you might expect, the achievement set is very adamant about that sort of obsessive completionism. Honestly, I think the last time I had this many balls bouncing around a place where the sun doesn't shine was that ill-fated attempt to go down that set of park stairs on a skateboard. Fortunately, Ball X Pit has been much more personally gratifying and involved far fewer hospital visits. So far at least.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Video Time!
I recorded one of my runs as a gameplay demonstration, which you can view here:
Pretty basic stuff, showing off the ball fusion and evolution mechanics and how an ordinary run can become a laser light show with little effort and the right choices. It also demonstrates a really powerful and intriguing feature I just unlocked where you can drag two characters down into the pit at once and share their passive abilities. There's combinations that get much wilder than those seen here, and I've been trying to work my way towards a couple of really elaborate ones: there's plenty of juice in this thing if you're the type to chew away at run-based games until the flavor's all gone.
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