There is an inevitability about CloverPit. Following the success of Balatro, there was always going to be a clamour of games that took a familiar pastime and applied ‘jokers’, deckbuilding and roguelike structures. 

The first wave, mostly on PC so far, has taken on mahjong (Demonic Mahjong), anagrams (Birdigo) and tower defense (9 Kings) and we will lay bets on Chess, Solitaire and Sudoku being in the works. 

It was inevitable that a one-armed bandit interpretation would be on the way, and so we have CloverPit.

Then there’s CloverPit’s art style and tone, which also feels inevitable. Inscryption took the grim, bloody grotesquerie of Buckshot Roulette and made it something that was somehow macabre but also intensely explorable. You wanted to find out what was coming next, like all the best horror movies. That tone could be ported to other indie games, and CloverPit has taken the opportunity. Perhaps the only surprise is that both the Balatro-a-like and Inscryption stylings have happened in the same game.

The Bottomless CloverPit

For those who haven’t been caught in Balatro’s web for the past couple of years, CloverPit deserves some explanation. There’s a simple core: you have a one-armed bandit that’s been expanded a little further than the ones you might have played down The Queen’s Head. Instead of a single row of cherries, sevens and bells, there are three rows (a grid, effectively). This allows for a greater play area, enabling diagonals, columns and other patterns. As a result, you’re going to get three-or-more symbols in a row more often than your average fruity.

On top of that core, you have the game’s Deadlines. These are a set number of ‘rounds’ to achieve a monetary target. You might have 21 pulls of the one-armed bandit to get 666 gold, and failure to do so will lead to a trapdoor opening beneath your feet. Buh-bye gambler!

That might seem unfair, as one-armed bandits are entirely built on luck. This is where the game’s Lucky Charms come into play, and spice things up nicely. Every round of 7 pulls, you get a ticket (and you start with a couple of them too). These tickets can be spent in a shop within your cell, buying you Lucky Charms that are very much synonymous with the jokers from Balatro or the relics from Slay the Spire and Monster Train. They apply benefits, both passive and active. Some will make your pull ‘lucky’, virtually guaranteeing you a match, while others will make cherries and other symbols more likely or rewarding. Combo-ing these, creating builds that synergise, is very much the secret sauce of CloverPit.

The Lucky Charms are not your only method of modifying the very luck-based bandit. Every successful round, the telephone in your jail rings. The person on the other end – whomever they may be – offers you a choice of three significant benefits. They need to intertwine with your Lucky Charms to reach the later rounds.

One of CloverPit’s neatest inventions is a constant temptation to push-your-luck. You can make things harder for yourself to garner greater benefits. Restrict the number of pulls on the lever in a round and you’ll get more tickets for Lucky Charms. Deposit cash early and you will get compounding interest in the following rounds, while completing a round early leads to a windfall of tickets. As the game goes on, some of the greatest benefits (such as a cadaver that accumulates on your bandit) have some of the most significant downsides.

There are secrets, mysteries and toilets(?) to uncover as you progress. Your success begets new options and crumbs of explanation about why you are in a death chamber with its own fruit machine. Completionists will relish completing their collection of Lucky Charms, opening the game’s various drawers, and building a backlog of Memory Packs, which apply buffs for your run. 

Lacking A Cherry On Top

There’s no doubt that CloverPit has all the ingredients for a successful game in the burgeoning Balatro-a-like genre (which, it has to be said, needs a better name. Balatrobuilder? We’ll work on it). It should be a home run. But in my case, it falls short. It makes me all the more curious about why CloverPit doesn’t quite connect with me. I know others have fallen in love with this grimy, unfriendly little game, and I loved the heck out of Balatro. So why do I feel only a small tug to keep playing, rather than the customary large one?

I suspect that one of the bigger reasons is the role that luck plays in CloverPit. By their nature, fruit machines offer less agency than, say, poker. You pull a lever and something happens. That was always going to be a tough nut for developers Panik Arcade to crack. How can you give players a feeling of control, when fruit machines actively try to take that control away?

I don’t think Panik Arcade quite get there. You can fiddle with the composition of the symbols from afar, making them more or less likely to appear in the game’s hidden algorithms, but that’s a far cry from picking which cards are added or removed in a deckbuilder. Things feel more helpless and dislocated, leaving you cursing when the game is unlucky, and not wholly responsible when you do something amazing. CloverPit tries to make up for things by tossing luck your way – jackpots, for example, happen far more often than you would expect – but that tinkering only makes the ‘rules’ of when symbols appear more opaque.

It’s very subjective, but I never truly felt that I could create hybrid builds in CloverPit. To win, you need to be deadly focused. Perhaps you get an early Lucky Charm that makes lemons particularly beneficial. Well, your best bet is to double down on lemons forevermore. Any Lucky Charm or telephone call which makes another symbol more likely is worthless and taking up a valuable slot in the shop. Sure, that happens to a degree in other similar games, but the railway tracks feel so much more rigid in CloverPit.

Hitting The JackPit

That’s not to say that runs in CloverPit are unsatisfying. There is always a scrabbly moment at the start as you try to stay alive with the hot-chilli Lucky Charms that improve your luck, while forming the scraps of a decent build. Then comes a lovely fork in the road, as you determine just what kind of run you are building towards. There might be a pivot or two on the way, but then you are locked into a run. 

And when charms complement each other, CloverPit feels as rewarding as any fruit machine. Scores escalate and fireworks fly, making you feel unstoppable. There’s not much better than the feeling of earning enough gold, not only for this round, but for the following one too. 

I suspect the tug I needed to keep playing could have come from a better overarching goal. CloverPit borrows its looks from Inscryption, but not its gripping sense of ‘what happens next?’. Sure, it makes a few gestures towards a mystery and an escape, but it’s more interested in the everlasting loops of a roguelike. Not every game needs a story or end goal, but CloverPit feels like it’s making overtures towards them and then rug-pulls them away at the last moment.

Not that the setting is a poor one, mind you. It’s going to be offputting to some (it’s not hard to imagine a neon Las Vegas version of CloverPit which would have been a slam dunk for Balatro fans, but would have been a little less characterful as a result), but the Texas Chainsaw vibes means there are some gruesome interactions. Destroying Charms leads to a fountain of blood; leave Charms in drawers and they rot away. It’s got all the charm of a charnel pit, and we mean that positively.

I’m conflicted on CloverPit. As an addict of both Balatro and Inscryption, I found myself purchasing it without a second thought. And it’s not as if it didn’t capture the feelings that I wanted: tinkering with builds in an effort to create the most hideously unbalanced combination.

But there’s something missing – a purpose, a sense of control – that means it tumbles down the list of games that we want to play for a quick roguelike fix. 

Unlike real-life gambling, CloverPit is a habit that is a little too easy to break.

Important Links

Break the Slot Machine to Pay Your Debt – CloverPit Launches as a Surprise Game Pass Hit! – https://www.thexboxhub.com/break-the-slot-machine-to-pay-your-debt-cloverpit-launches-as-a-surprise-game-pass-hit/

Download CloverPit on Xbox (through Game Pass if you wish) – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/cloverpit/9p8v7hr160b4